


Elizabeth

by secooper87



Series: Adventures of a Line Hopper [14]
Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Doctor Who
Genre: Action, Action/Adventure, Crossing Timelines, Crossover, F/M, Mystery, Timelines, Vampires, Whump
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-23
Updated: 2012-04-25
Packaged: 2017-11-02 10:29:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 30
Words: 62,643
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/367975
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/secooper87/pseuds/secooper87
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>SEQUEL to "Don't Be" and "Paradox".  Who is Elizabeth Summers?  What happened in 2003 in the other timeline?  With the universe falling apart, and tensions between Elizabeth and the Doctor rising, the Scoobies struggle to work it out.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> It is not necessary to read "Paradox" or "Don't Be" to understand this story.
> 
> (Although it might be more fun if you've read them.)

**_July 20, 2001_ **

Xander and Anya rushed at the vampire, stakes raised in the night air, but the vampire was fast — too fast for them — and quickly dodged out of sight.

_He's behind the mausoleum on your right,_ Willow informed them, in their heads.

Xander clutched his head. "I hate it when she does that," he said to Anya.

They rushed off, their stakes raised, trying to find the evil vampire. The vampire found them first. The vampire leapt out at Anya, keeping her in a chokehold. Anya struggled and tried to free herself, but the vampire was too strong.

"You cross me, and I'll squish you into raspberry jam," came a chirpy voice from their right. The vampire turned and released Anya, as he came face-to-face with the image of Buffy Summers. Although, if the vampire had been less stupid and undead, he probably would have noticed that something was wrong with the Slayer, and not just because of the 'raspberry jam' comment.

The Buffy-bot ran forwards, a stake in hand, and slammed into — the side of the mausoleum. She frowned, and thrust her stake at the side of the mausoleum again. "Why aren't you turning to dust?" she asked it.

"Um, Willow?" Xander asked.

_She seems to think the gravestones are vampires,_ Willow told him. _She's been doing it all night. Just ignore her and…_ Willow trailed off. Then: _Oh, my God._

"What?" Xander and Anya asked.

The vampire lashed out at them, and Xander and Anya turned and fled. Hand in hand, they rushed across the cemetery, trying to find someplace safe to hide. But the vampire was right behind them, and they weren't able to run that fast and any second now, it was going to—

"Xander, what are you doing?" the Buffy-bot shouted. "Get down!"

Xander felt himself yanked off his feet, and fell down behind a small little gravestone, Anya tumbling after him. He looked over at the Buffy-bot, and pointed at the headstone. "Yeah, this thing? Not a good hiding spot."

"Stay there," the Buffy-bot instructed him, and jumped to her feet. She ran out into the middle of a clearing. "Hey, vampire!" she called. She started jumping up and down, waving her arms in the air. "Yoo-hoo! Over here! Hello!"

"Willow's got to do something about that programming," said Xander to Anya.

The vampire spotted the Buffy-bot, and snarled. "Slayer."

The Buffy-bot crossed her arms. "And here I was, going to be nice to you," she said. "Well, you know what? Now that you've called me Slayer — not feeling so nice anymore."

Willow's voice pierced Xander and Anya's heads.

_Oh, my God! Oh, my God! Oh, my God!_

"Will, could you please stop?" Xander said.

_Oh, my God! Oh, my God! Oh, my God!_

"Either shut up or tell us what's so important!" Anya shouted.

The vampire snapped his head around, and growled at Xander and Anya. It stalked towards them. The Buffy-bot ran forwards, reaching a hand into her jeans pocket, and took out something that looked like an oversized walkie-talkie. She pointed it at the vampire. A burst of glowing, golden light shot out of it just as the vampire grabbed Anya, and the vampire screamed, as he collapsed into ash.

Xander just stared at the Buffy-bot. Was it programmed to do that? Or was this like in all those movies, when the evil robots broke free from their programming and rose up against their human masters?

And what the hell was that golden light thingy?

The Buffy-bot came over to them, and offered Anya a hand up. "Are you all right?" she asked.

Xander felt his breath coming fast. "What did you do?"

"Something you're not allowed to tell anyone about," said the Buffy-bot.

Anya didn't take the Buffy-bot's hand, but got to her feet and clutched at Xander instead. "Well, whatever your death laser thing did, you can't use it on us!" she said to the Buffy-bot. "Because we can just get Willow to reprogram you!"

The Buffy-bot stared at Anya. "Hang on. Who are you?"

Xander put his arms around Anya, and tried to edge the two of them away from the Buffy-bot. He gave a nervous laugh. "She doesn't mean it," he said. "What she meant to say was, if you're trying to rise up against all of humanity and destroy us in a fiery Armageddon, we surrender."

"We do?" Anya asked.

Xander elbowed her.

"Oh, I mean, yes," she said. "We do. Of course we do."

The Buffy-bot dropped her hand. "Okay, Xander. Seriously. What's with the creepy?" she asked.

Xander opened his mouth to answer, but at that moment, Willow rushed out, and threw her arms around the Buffy-bot, in a hug so excited and eager it nearly tackled the Buffy-bot to the ground.

"Oh, my God," said Willow. "You're alive! You're alive!"

The Buffy-bot tried to pry Willow off. "I was last time I checked," she said. "What's…?" She trailed off, as her eyes fixed on a distant point. They grew wide. "Hang on," she said. "Is that a robot?"

Xander and Anya looked over, and found…

The Buffy-bot coming towards them, still merrily trying to stake the gravestones.

Xander looked from the real Buffy-bot, to the fake Buffy-bot. "But if that's… then that means you…"

Willow pulled out of the hug, and turned to Xander. "She just appeared," Willow explained. "I saw it. She stepped out from some trees, and I don't know how, but she's back, Xander! She came back!"

"Yeah," said Buffy, putting her hands into her jeans pockets. "I went into some trees, and then I came out again. All with the clappy and the fun times. Why's it such a big deal?"

"Well, normal people don't usually come back from being dead," said Anya.

Buffy froze. Her eyes widened. She looked from Xander, to Anya, to Willow. "Dead?" she asked.

"You… don't remember?" Willow asked her.

Buffy breathed, heavily. "What year is this?"

"You've been dead about 60 days," Xander said. "It's still the same—"

"What year is this?" Buffy demanded.

"It's 2001," said Willow.

The shock on Buffy's face melted into confusion. "But I don't die in 2001."

"We all saw it happen," said Anya. "If you weren't dead, you definitely knew how to hold your breath."

"I saw it happen, too!" Buffy said. "I was there! Twice! And it wasn't in 2001! It was in…" She trailed off, then looked around. "Wait a sec. This is Sunnydale." She turned back to Xander and Anya and Willow. "If this is still Sunnydale, then I _can't_ be dead. See? It makes sense!"

Willow and Anya and Xander looked at one another, not really sure what to say to this. Then a shout came up from the other end of the cemetery. Everyone snapped their heads around, to find Tara rushing towards them, panting. She pointed behind her.

"Big… drippy things…" she panted, leaning over, hands on knees. "Just… appeared. They… they got…" She trailed off, as she spotted Buffy. She stared. "What?"

Buffy peered off into the distance. "Sounds like evil monster killing fun-time," she muttered.

She darted off, away from them, towards a nearby street lamp. She jerked the panel at the bottom of the street lamp open, and started wiring the walkie-talkie gold shooty device into the lamp.

The lamp beam flickered, and then went out. When it zapped back on again, the beam radiated with gold flecks, tumbling through the air and seeking out the two green droopy demon things that had backed Giles into a corner of the cemetery. Spike was nowhere to be seen.

The moment the streetlamp's wandering light beam found the green droopy demon things, it plunged downwards, surrounding them. They struggled, but the light seemed to be keeping them frozen in place, and they couldn't move.

Buffy ran over to them. She crossed her arms, and gave them a pointed stare.

They hissed at her.

"What? It's the hair, right?" she asked. She flicked her ponytail. "I knew I should have gone with the braids."

"This technology is not of your world," one of the creatures spat at her. "Where did you get it?"

"Wal-Mart," she said. She raised her eyebrows at them. "Oh, come on, where d'you think I got it? It's not like there's a Snadazankers-R-Us on Earth. Not in this century, anyways."

The creature's eyes widened, and they struggled a little more, trying even harder to break free from the light beams. "You are an off-worlder?"

"I'm a human being," said Buffy. "And I'm here to get you off my planet. That clear?"

"You cannot be human," said the second creature. "No human being could possibly have the intelligence to understand—"

"Yeah, can we save that whole 'humans are inferior' thing for after you're done leaving?" said Buffy. "Because, tell you what — it didn't work with the Daleks, and it's not going to work with you."

Willow, Xander, and Anya all raced up to Buffy. Xander stared at the alien creatures, trapped in the gold light. "Woah, weird and drippy is right," he said. He turned to Buffy. "What… exactly are they?"

"The ones I was telling you about," said Buffy. "You know. With the army of militaristic space ships waiting for their signal to destroy the Earth? The whole apocalypse-bad-got-to-prevent thing we do on, like, a weekly basis?"

Giles got up to his feet, adjusting his glasses as he stared at Buffy. "But that's…"

"And how do you think you will stop us?" asked the first creature. "You already used up most of the power of the Snadazanker saving your two friends." He nodded over at Anya and Xander. "Even now, we can feel the effects wearing off. And when the power fails, we will kill you and feast on your innards."

"You really know how to make a girl feel wanted, don't you?" said Buffy. She snatched up the crossbow that Giles had dropped, and aimed it at the creatures. "Now. Are you going to play nice, or are we going to put those lessons from William Tell to the test?"

"We will destroy you!" the creatures shouted, growling.

Buffy sighed. "That's what they all say." And then she shot them both in the heart, one right after another, as the light from the streetlamp faded into darkness.

A few seconds later, the streetlamp flickered back to its normal, incandescent glowiness, and Buffy set the crossbow down on the ground. She went over to Giles.

"Sorry about dragging you into this," she said. "They were… um… just forget about the whole alien end of the world thing, okay? They were just… you know. Some… bad guys I've been following for a while, now, and…" She noticed that Giles kept staring at her, and shifted uncomfortably. "I'm… a secret agent," she tried again. "And this is all completely funded by the government and I'm…" She glanced over at Xander and Anya, then back to Giles' incredulous face. "Okay, I'm just some random person who saves the world in my spare time. There, you happy?"

"Buffy?" Giles asked.

Buffy stepped backwards. "How… do you know that?"

"Buffy, is that really you?" Giles asked.

Buffy looked over at Willow. "Is this guy a friend of yours?"

"You don't remember me?" Giles asked Buffy.

Anya waved her hand. "Yeah, she doesn't remember me, either."

"Buffy, don't you remember Giles?" Willow asked.

"Remember… wait, why do you guys keep calling me Buffy?" Buffy asked. "No one's called me Buffy since—"

"Buffy?" came an English voice to her right.

Everyone looked around, and found Spike, emerging from his hiding place inside a nearby mausoleum.

Buffy took a few moments to just stare at him. "This is going to sound weird, but I'm sure I've seen you before."

"Well," said Spike. "Yeah. That's what happens when you're mortal enemies with someone."

Buffy seemed confused by this, but didn't have time to reply, before Tara came forwards and swept her into a hug. Buffy hugged her back, even more confused. "Um, hi, Tara," she said. "You know, I'm all for the tearful reunion, but seriously, I was only gone for, like, five minutes." Her eyes flicked back over to the Buffy-bot. "And what's with robo-me?"

"She's… just a decoy," said Tara, pulling out of the hug. "So that we could convince the vampires you were still around."

"Uh-huh," said Buffy. "Putting aside that whole — vampire whatever — where did you even get a robot like that?"

"It's… the Buffy-bot," said Willow. "You remember. The one that Warren made?"

"Warren…" Buffy's eyes went wide. "Wait, wait, wait. You don't mean the creepy misogynist with the robot girlfriend?" She looked back over at the Buffy-bot, disgust washing across her face. "But that means…" She gagged. "Who would do something like that?"

Everyone looked over at Spike.

Buffy followed their gazes. "You?" she asked. "I don't even know you! Why would you…?"

"Well, that makes a change," said Spike. "First you want to kill me, then I get that bloody chip in my head and I'm the butt of all your jokes. And now, you come back from the grave, and I'm downgraded to 'I don't even know you'."

Buffy glared at Spike, recognition dawning in her eyes. "Oh, it's _you_ ," she said, her voice a low growl. "I should have killed you when I had the chance." She plucked the wooden stake out of Xander's hand, and ran towards Spike.

"Buffy, no!" Willow and Tara cried. They caught her by the arms, and hauled her back.

Buffy squirmed and struggled in their grips, but couldn't get free.

"You can't stake Spike," Anya said to Buffy, taking the stake out of her hand. "He's good — well, no, he's not. Actually, he's still pretty evil. But he's got that chip in his head."

"He's got what?" Buffy said. She struggled again. "Look, who are you, anyways?"

Willow and Tara looked at one another. "Maybe she's lost her memory," said Willow. "I mean, something like… you know, what happened… might cause some major memory loss."

"I haven't lost anything," said Buffy. "It's all of you guys who've gone crazy." She pointed at Spike. "That guy is evil! I saw what happened in Romania! You have to let me kill him!"

"Hang on," said Xander. "Something's not right, here." He watched as Buffy struggled to break free from Willow and Tara. "Buffy's super strong. She would have gotten free from you guys by now. Which means, whoever that is… it's not Buffy."


	2. Chapter 2

Willow and Tara's grips tightened around Not Buffy's arms, and Not Buffy stopped struggling.

"Xander, what are you talking about?" Not Buffy asked. "I'm not super strong. And I've told you a thousand times not to call me—"

"He's right," said Tara. "This isn't Buffy. Something about her feels wrong."

"What?" Not Buffy exclaimed.

"What are you, really?" Xander asked, leaning in closer and trying to look as intimidating as possible. "What are you trying to pull? Because I can tell you right now — whatever you're pulling, we're not pulling it."

"I'm just trying to save the world like I always do!" Not Buffy shouted. "What's wrong with you people?"

"It could be some sort of sorcery or witchcraft," Giles proposed. "Some creature from the underworld, perhaps, trying to take on Buffy's form."

"I'm not anything from the underworld!" Not Buffy snapped. "I'm just—"

"Hello!" came the cheerful voice of the Buffy-bot, as she strode over to them. Her eyes landed on Not Buffy. "Oh, hello," said the Buffy-bot. "You're me."

"You're Warren's robot, right?" Not Buffy asked.

"Yes, Warren designed me," the Buffy-bot confirmed, with a plastic smile. "I like Warren. He's very nice."

"Okay," said Not Buffy. "Then in that case, initiate emergency sequence 0-Alpha-7-9."

The Buffy-bot froze. Then, in a weird, stilted voice, she said, "DNA scan proceeding." The Buffy-bot's eyes scanned Not Buffy up and down, slowly. Then, the eyes shut, and the bot reached forwards, and pricked the tip of Not Buffy's finger. Then it whirred again, and went still. "Scan complete. DNA direct match to Buffy Anne Summers."

"I'm not called — oh, never mind," said Not Buffy. She looked over at Willow. "Believe me, now?"

"I didn't know the Buffy-bot could do that," said Willow.

"It worked last time," said Not Buffy. "With Warren's other robot. April. Remember? When I tinkered around inside and convinced her that…" She trailed off, as she noticed the blank faces around her. "You don't remember that?" She took a deep breath, then glanced over at Willow. "Willow. When we first met, I asked you for help in school, and you were all shy around boys so I told you to seize the day, and later that evening you nearly got eaten alive and I had to rescue you. Please tell me you remember that."

Willow hesitated. "You… could have just heard that."

"Okay, well, what about… when you first told me about you and Tara?" said Not Buffy. "We were in the dorm, and you were hugging that big stuffed dog of yours, and I thought Tara was in love with Oz, but then I had one of those 'world shifting 180 degrees' moments, and started calling you 'Will' over and over again, and you got mad. Remember?" She looked into Willow's eyes. "Remember… ziti and the rented scooter with John Cusack?"

Willow's grip loosened around Maybe Buffy's arm. "Buffy?"

"Will, please, I told you not to call me that," said Maybe Buffy.

Willow looked blankly at her. "What… should I call you?"

"Elizabeth," said Elizabeth. "Come on, Will. You've got to remember me! I'm your best friend."

"But… but…" Willow sputtered. She looked over at Giles. "Buffy's real name isn't Elizabeth. I thought we checked that out when we made the gravestone."

"I think the more important issue," said Giles, "is that this Elizabeth, whoever she may be, seems to know all of us — well, with the exception of myself and Anya — but we don't seem to know her."

Elizabeth looked around at them. "I… huh?"

"It's clear you're not Buffy," said Giles. "But you do seem to share many of her memories."

"Maybe it's kind of like Dawn," said Willow. "Except, you know, with Buffy. Someone made a replacement Buffy, and gave her all the right memories, except… they forgot a few."

"Oh, no," said Xander. "Not that again. I'm Hell-goddessed out. For life."

Tara released her hold on Elizabeth's arm. "Do you know anything about this?" she asked Elizabeth.

"I'm still hoping you'll all shout, 'ha-ha, just kidding,' and go back to normal," Elizabeth told her.

"You're me, except you're old," the Buffy-bot reported to Elizabeth, a smile still plastered across her face. "Why are you so old?"

"You know what?" said Elizabeth, with a sigh. "That's really not helping."

"What precisely does that mean?" Giles asked the Buffy-bot. He glanced over at Anya. "This wouldn't imply that Elizabeth used to be some sort of demon or—"

"Buffy is 20 years old," chirped the Buffy-bot. She turned to Elizabeth. "Your DNA says you're 22."

"Yeah," Elizabeth said. "Believe me, I know."

"So you're, like, Buffy's older sister?" Willow asked.

"I'm not — look, legally speaking, I am Buffy Anne Summers!" Elizabeth said. "I don't like to be called that. I don't respond to that. But, if you want to be technical, that's my name. I may be a little older, but I'm still just the same as I was before I left."

"Wait, what if this is Buffy," said Willow, "but that portal took her to some Hell dimension or something, and she's spent the last two years in Hell?"

Elizabeth gave a dry laugh. "More like four," she muttered.

"Not even a Hell dimension would be able to strip Buffy of her Slayer abilities," said Giles. "And this Buffy is a completely ordinary human girl. No super strength, no quick reflexes, none of it."

"Are you blind?" Spike said. "She's obviously faking it. This isn't Buffy. It's an evil demon taking Buffy's form."

Elizabeth lunged for Anya's stake. "That's it," she said. "I'm going to kill him."

Willow and Tara pulled her back.

"Hate to point out the obvious," said Xander. "But… she _did_ just save the world. And she put her own life in danger to save Anya, without knowing who Anya was. I'm pretty sure evil demons don't do stuff like that."

"But if she's not an evil demon," said Willow, letting Elizabeth go, "and she's not Buffy, then who is she?"

The Scoobies all looked over to Giles. Giles was musing the situation over, thinking it through. "Well, there's one very obvious explanation," he said. "The portal Glory opened nearly merged every reality together. I suppose this… Elizabeth… might be Buffy from another world. One in which myself and Anya, apparently, never played an active role."

"Portal?" asked Elizabeth. She twirled her finger in the air, miming the portal. "Big? Blue? Circley? Lots of crackling energy stuff? Opened up right over…." Her eyes flicked upwards, and she saw the scaffolding that Glory had erected, and her hand dropped. "That's weird. That wasn't there a few minutes ago."

"So this is like that time when Anya did the temporal fold!" Willow said to Giles. "You know, when evil vampire me showed up? This is Buffy, but it's not Buffy."

"Would that make Elizabeth the evil Buffy?" Tara asked.

"I'm not evil," Elizabeth said, crossing her arms.

"Not necessarily," said Giles. "Although… I suppose given the number of Hell dimensions out there, it is likely that—"

"My major hobby is saving the world!" Elizabeth snapped. "On a weekly basis. I'm the one fighting off the forces of darkness, here! Not helping them." She reflected, a small smile crawling up her face. "Huh. 'Fighting off the forces of darkness.' That's kind of catchy."

"Well, she's not a vampire," said Spike. "I can hear her blood pumping."

Elizabeth turned on Spike. "Don't think I've forgotten about you," she warned. She put herself between Spike and the others. "They may not be letting me kill you, now, but I swear. If you touch one hair on my friends' heads, I'll find a way to put a stake through your heart."

"And that's very Buffy," said Xander.

"So you're saying this is Buffy," said Tara. "Actual Buffy. Looking like Buffy, acting like Buffy, completely identical to Buffy in every way. Except she's from another world. One where she's named Elizabeth."

"And one in which she never got Called," Giles said.

"And one where she's still alive," Xander added.

"And one where I don't exist," Anya volunteered. She glanced over at Giles. "Along with… some other people."

"Yeah, about that. Who are you, exactly?" Elizabeth asked Anya. "And why don't I know you?"

"I'm Anya," said Anya. "Xander's—"

"Girlfriend," Xander cut in. "And you probably wouldn't know her, because — in this world, at least — she spent 1100 years as a vengeance demon. Except she's not a vengeance demon anymore, she's just a normal person."

Elizabeth thought about this for a moment. Then shrugged. "Okay," she said.

Tara and Willow looked at each other. "You're not… freaked out by the whole alive for 1100 years thing?" asked Tara.

"I've dated older," said Elizabeth. "Or, at least, he said he was. Although, he did lie. A lot."

"Who?" Anya asked. "Do I know them?"

"What I want to know," said Elizabeth, ignoring Anya, "is why a demon would even come to Sunnydale in the first place. I mean, until last year, with the portal and the crazy number of evil creatures that kept randomly appearing on our doorstep, nothing ever happened here. It was, like, dullsville USA."

Everyone gawked at Elizabeth.

"You… you mean you don't know about the Hellmouth?" Giles asked her.

"The what-mouth?" asked Elizabeth.

"The Hellmouth," said Xander. "It's sort of… well, it's the entrance to Hell. And it's in Sunnydale."

"You've got an open doorway to Hell where you live?" Elizabeth asked.

"Not open, actually," said Giles. "It's closed, but even when it's closed, it still bleeds mystical energy. That attracts all sorts of rather nasty creatures. In this world, at least, demons and vampires are a regular occurrence in Sunnydale."

"Wow," said Elizabeth. She gave a small laugh. "Sunnydale as a permanent demon central depot. Who would have thought?" She stopped laughing, and her face went pale. "If this is another world… my mom. Is she…?"

No one said anything, but they didn't have to. Elizabeth just nodded, and looked down at her feet.

Willow looked over at Anya. "If this _is_ one of those other timeline things, can't we, you know, do what we did last time? With the temporal fold? We could get her back to where she came from."

Elizabeth's head popped up. "You're going to send me back?"

Willow looked over at Elizabeth. "Well, I just thought, I mean, this isn't your world, and we aren't really your friends, and you might want to get back to…" She trailed off, as she caught the sad look in Elizabeth's eyes. "Or… not."

"No, I mean, if you want me to go… I can go," said Elizabeth, scuffing her shoes against the ground. "I'm not trying to… you know. But if this is another world, and stuff, I thought maybe I could…." She shrugged.

"You want to stay here?" Giles asked.

"Well, yeah. I mean, since your Buffy died," said Elizabeth, "and you're so desperate to get her back that you're using a robot, I thought, you know… maybe I could help out."

"This world's different from yours," said Anya. "You wouldn't fit in."

"You mean because of the evil monsters and the danger and the crazy villains trying to destroy the world?" asked Elizabeth. She gave a small laugh. "I think I can handle it."

"It's not as simple as you might think," said Giles. "There's nothing trivial about fighting the forces of darkness. And especially because you aren't the Slayer—"

"Don't call me slayer," Elizabeth hissed through her teeth.

"—you're coming at it from an extreme disadvantage," Giles continued. "You won't have super strength, or quick reflexes, you'll have had no training—"

"You know," said Xander. "She did manage to fry a vampire, and get rid of these two drippy things. Really easily. With some freaky gold-light thing."

"You weren't supposed to tell anyone!" Elizabeth scolded Xander. She sighed. "I'd better go and get that Snadazanker back, before anyone notices."

She turned, and zipped back towards the lamppost.

"You guys," said Willow, in a hushed voice. "Are you really sure this is a good idea? I mean, we don't know anything about her! Even if she is Buffy, you know, with DNA and stuff, maybe she's not all that Buffy-like on the inside?"

"You got to admit," said Xander, "she does act like Buffy. She saves the world. She fights evil monsters. She sasses Spike."

"She does do that," said Spike.

"Tara, you're able to detect these sorts of things," Giles said. "What do you get from her?"

"She's not Buffy," said Tara. "But, I mean, we sort of knew that. Buffy gives off this… Slayer thing, when you're around her, and Elizabeth doesn't. But that doesn't mean she's bad. As Xander said, she did save the world."

"Why does she even want to stay here, anyways?" asked Anya. "I've flipped people into the wrong timeline hundreds of times, and most of the time, they just want to go home." She paused. "Except…."

Xander made a motion for her to go on.

"…except when they lose someone they're close to who's alive in the other timeline," said Anya. "Like, a mother, or a daughter, or something. Then they want to stay."

"It's not her mother," said Giles. "It appears that's the same in both worlds."

"Elizabeth said she saw the portal, too, remember?" said Willow. "Maybe, in her world, Dawn was the one who jumped."

"She didn't ask about Dawn," said Tara. "She asked about her mom. And if she didn't have vengeance demons in her world, I'm pretty sure Hell Goddesses didn't come up, either."

"Okay, creepy thought, here," said Xander. "The only people she knows, for sure, are alive in this world are us. So, what if she wants to stay here because she lost one of _us_?"

Everyone looked at everyone else. Willow opened her mouth to say something, but that was when Elizabeth came back, the Snadazanker in her hand.

"Sorry," she said. "I'm sort of not supposed to have this thing. I kind of borrowed it a while back, and it's been really useful, so I… didn't bother returning it." She stuffed it into her pocket. "Um. Yeah. So. You were saying. About monsters, right?"

"Yes, monsters," said Giles, with a smile that was only slightly forced. "We have many in Sunnydale. Vampires, especially."

Elizabeth nodded. "Okay. I can handle those. In fact, I got the most infamous one in history, so go me."

"Really?" asked Willow. "Which one?"

Elizabeth looked up at Spike, a dark expression on her face. "He knows. He was there."

"I have no clue who you mean, love," said Spike, lighting up a cigarette.

Elizabeth snatched the cigarette out of his hands, and stubbed it out beneath her foot. "Yeah, did I mention? I didn't like you in the past. And I still don't like you, in the present. So if you want some advice from me? Don't piss me off!"

Spike's face twisted into a vampiric snarl, and he tried to strike out at her, but the chip activated, and he clutched his head in pain. Elizabeth gave a vague grin of amusement at this.

Xander looked over at Willow. It was clear they were both thinking the same thing. Whoever this 'Elizabeth' was, Spike couldn't hit her. Which meant… she wasn't evil. She wasn't a demon.

She looked like Buffy. She acted like Buffy. She spoke like Buffy. Her DNA matched Buffy's. She saved the world like Buffy did. She had a number of Buffy's memories. And she wasn't a shape-shifter or a demon trying to fool them. Which meant…

Elizabeth was Buffy. She really was Buffy.

They had finally gotten Buffy back.

"But it's not just vampires. We also have demons," Anya chimed in, oblivious to the non-verbal communication around her. "Like Polgara demons — they have this little skewer thing in their arms. And Mok'tagar demons — they like to suck out your soul. And—"

"All I want to know," Elizabeth cut in, "is if there's an English-sounding guy wandering around with shoulder length, wavy hair, wearing a green frock coat that looks like it's straight out of Victorian England?"

Everyone looked at everyone else. "No," they all agreed.

Elizabeth smiled. "Then I'll be able to handle anything this world throws at me."

"Who's the guy in the frock coat?" asked Anya.

Elizabeth's eyes went dark. "A monster," she said. Then, it passed, and she went back to normal, as if nothing had happened. "So… um…" She gave a sheepish smile. "Can I stay?"

"We should probably ask Dawn about it," said Tara.

Elizabeth frowned. "Who's Dawn?" she asked. "Is this another… her-type thing?" She pointed at Anya.

"Oh, no!" Anya said. "I was a vengeance demon. Dawn was just a big green glowing ball of energy."

"Oh," said Elizabeth. She shrugged. "Okay."

"You're not… weirded out by any of this?" Willow asked.

"Trust me," said Elizabeth, with a grin. "I've seen way weirder."


	3. Chapter 3

Dawn rushed down the stairs, as she saw the group coming back from their patrol. She flung open the door, and then stared at a sight she never thought she'd see again. There, standing right beside the Buffy-bot, was…

"Buffy?" Dawn asked.

Giles stepped forwards. "It's… not exactly Buffy," he said. "This is… well, she calls herself Elizabeth. She appeared in the graveyard whilst we were on patrol. None of us are quite sure how or why she arrived, but she seems to be Buffy from another world."

Elizabeth gave Dawn a friendly wave. "Hi."

Dawn looked between Giles and Elizabeth. "I… I don't…"

"She doesn't have anywhere else to go, Dawny," said Willow. "And she really does seem like Buffy. Just, Buffy without the, you know, Hellmouthy stuff."

Dawn stuffed a hand into her back pocket, and slouched in the doorway. "Oh, I get it," she said. "You're letting her stay here, until you and Tara can do some magic spell to send her back to her world. I'm cool with that."

"Actually, I sort of thought maybe I could… stay for good?" Elizabeth volunteered. "I mean, only if that's all right!"

"It does seem to be a rather ingenious plan," Giles told Dawn. "With Elizabeth, we wouldn't need to worry about your father calling, or demons discovering Buffy's demise, or any of the other myriad of problems we've been discussing."

"You're replacing Buffy?" Dawn asked.

Everyone froze.

"We're… not replacing her," Tara said to Dawn. "Elizabeth just thought maybe she could stay here, and we—"

"You can't just replace Buffy like that!" Dawn cried. She turned to Elizabeth. "Whoever you are, whatever you look like, you're not Buffy! You'll never be Buffy!"

"Dawn, calm down," said Willow. "No one's trying to replace…" She trailed off, as she realized that, what with the Buffy-bot around and everything, that argument didn't hold much weight.

Elizabeth stepped towards Dawn. "Look, I heard what happened to Buffy," she said, quietly. "And I'm really, really sorry. I know what it's like to lose people you're close to. I've lost… oh, God, I've lost so many people. And you can't ever replace them, no matter what. Even if I'm all same DNA and same memories, it's not like I'm ever going to be Buffy. I get that. It's just… this world's like a taste of freedom for me, and — I mean, looking at Sunnydale all Hellmouthy and demony and stuff — I think I could really help you guys out." She looked deep into Dawn's eyes. "Please. Just give me a chance."

Dawn hesitated. The thing was that this Elizabeth person did seem really nice, and she looked and sounded and acted so much like Buffy. It was really tempting.

"Maybe," said Dawn.

Elizabeth smiled. "Great!" she said. "I mean — not great in a going-to-move-my-stuff-in-and-hog-the-place way, just great in a glad-to-make-friends kind of way. Not that I'm thinking we're friends, yet. Unless you want to be friends. That would be great! I know it's never going to be the same kind of friendship you and Buffy had, but maybe we could still hang out."

Dawn stepped away. "Friends?" she cried. "Friends? You… you don't even know who I am!"

"They said you're an energy creature," said Elizabeth. "Which is… I mean, that's fine. Super fine. I've met lots of creatures of pure energy before. You don't even need to wear a perception filter, if you don't want. I'm not squeamish or closed minded or anything. I can handle it."

Dawn's eyes filled up with tears. Then she turned, and ran back into the house, up the stairs and into her bedroom, where she slammed the door.

Elizabeth looked after her. Then she looked back at the rest of the group. "I… I screwed it up, didn't I?"

Everyone looked at everyone else.

"We… never actually told her who Dawn was, did we?" Willow asked.

"I told her," Anya said. "Green glowing energy."

"Yes, but that's not exactly who Dawn was to Buffy," Xander explained.

Elizabeth blinked. "Um… who was Dawn to Buffy?"

"Dawn was Buffy's sister," Tara told her.

Elizabeth's breath caught in her throat. "Wait, but… you said… with the energy…"

"She used to be comprised solely of mystical energy," Giles explained. "But she's been given human form. For all intents and purposes, right now, she's a normal human child."

"And she's sort of insecure about the whole not-being-real thing," said Willow. "So when you came along, and didn't know her, she just…" Willow shrugged.

Elizabeth stared into the house, past the still-open door. "Oh, God. She must be furious at me."

"She'll get used to the idea," said Tara. "Just give her time."

Elizabeth hesitated, then shook her head. "I've got to go and apologize," she said. "I can't just leave her like that."

Elizabeth bolted inside the house, and raced up the stairs. She looked around, trying to work out where Dawn's room could be. Well, there had been a spare room that her mom had used as an art studio. Maybe it was that?

Elizabeth ran to the spare room, and, sure enough, could hear a crying girl behind it. She gathered up her courage, and knocked on the door.

"Go away!" Dawn sobbed.

"Dawn," said Elizabeth, softly, "I'm sorry. I didn't know. Can I come in?"

"No," said Dawn. "You're not Buffy. You can never be Buffy!"

Elizabeth nodded, and then slumped against the door. "I know," she said. "I never will. I'm just Elizabeth."

"Why don't you just go back where you came from!" Dawn shouted.

Elizabeth said nothing for a moment. "Because I'm running away," she admitted. She sunk down so that she was sitting on the floor, back against the door. "Have you ever done that, Dawn? Have you ever felt that fear, when you realize that you can't run fast enough, because the universe created you for one purpose and one purpose alone, and no matter where you go or what you do, you can never, ever get away from it?"

Dawn stopped crying. She sniffed. "Maybe."

"I've spent so long thinking about my destiny," said Elizabeth. "My fate. My purpose on this Earth. But you can't run away from the future, and mine keeps getting closer, day by day, hour by hour. And then, when I wound up here, in this world, it was like… I was free to choose for myself again. I wasn't some cosmic handyman's fix-it tool. I could be me. I could be a person."

The sound of footsteps clattered behind the door. "Willow and Tara haven't told you anything, have they?"

"They said you're Buffy's sister," said Elizabeth.

"Not about that," said Dawn. "About what I really am. Beneath the surface."

"You're Dawn Summers," said Elizabeth. "And you can be anything you want. You don't have to pay attention to what's beneath the surface. You can be free. Be yourself."

"You sound like all the stupid motivational speakers I've ever heard," said Dawn.

Elizabeth hugged her knees to her chest. "Except I believe it," she said. "Because I have to believe it. Because I whisper it to myself, every single day, and every night, as I fall asleep. It's the only thing that's kept me together, the only thing that's kept me from going insane. This idea that I can be myself again. That maybe it's not too late. Maybe they won't all die. Maybe it doesn't have to happen the way it did." She hunched over, and buried her face in her knees. "I can't let it happen the way it did."

The door creaked open, and Dawn stepped out. Elizabeth looked up at her, from her position on the floor.

"What happened?" asked Dawn.

"I don't want to think about it," said Elizabeth.

Dawn sat down on the floor beside Elizabeth. "I loved Buffy more than anything," she said. "She was my sister. And I lost her, because she sacrificed herself to save my life."

"Wow," said Elizabeth. She shook her head. "No wonder you're all with the no-replacement-Buffy. I can't top something like that."

Dawn looked over at Elizabeth, studying her carefully. "You really are exactly like Buffy," she said. "Except you look… kind of older."

"Yeah," said Elizabeth.

"You're not, like, evil or anything, right?" Dawn asked. "I mean, not that I think you are, but it's just—"

"I'm not evil," said Elizabeth. "I'm never going to be evil. I promise."

"Oh," said Dawn. She looked down at the rug beneath her. "I guess you can stay here."

"You sure?"

"Yeah," said Dawn, picking at the rug. "Just… I mean, if you act too much like Buffy, I might start… you know, accidentally…"

"I know," said Elizabeth. "I won't freak out or anything. And if you need a big sister, I can do that. I mean, you'll sort of have to bear with me, because I've never had a sister before, so I don't really know how it works. But I had a goldfish, once! His name was Mr. Bubbles. And if I could take care of Mr. Bubbles, I can take care of you!"

"Buffy had a goldfish named Mr. Bubbles," said Dawn. "She forgot to feed it, and it died."

"Oh," said Elizabeth. "You… know about that." She grimaced. "I… promise to remember to feed you?"

"Will you promise not to treat me like a kid?" Dawn asked, glancing over at Elizabeth.

Elizabeth looked her up and down. "How old are you? Fifteen or something?"

"Yeah."

"Then I'll treat you like you're fifteen," said Elizabeth. She grinned. "No making out with boys until your homework's done!"

"It's not that," said Dawn. "It's just that Buffy sometimes would, you know, treat me like I didn't understand about vampires and evil creatures and stuff."

"Oh," said Elizabeth. "Well, I wouldn't make out with any of those things even after I'd finished my homework."

Dawn gave a small giggle, and then swept Elizabeth into a hug. "Thanks," she said.

"Buf — I mean, Elizabeth!" Tara called from downstairs. "Giles is about to leave."

"I better go," Elizabeth said to Dawn. "But we'll talk more, okay?"

Dawn nodded, her arms still wrapped around Elizabeth, her eyes shut. And it was so much like Buffy, so much like her sister, that she just couldn't help herself. She wanted to pretend. She wanted to believe.

Buffy had come back.

Elizabeth gave Dawn a gentle pat on the back, before extricating herself from the hug, and going back down the stairs.


	4. Chapter 4

The moment Elizabeth appeared downstairs, Giles said his good nights, and left. Elizabeth just stood around, still feeling a little dazed from the whole experience. Then she glanced over to the living room, noticed the others had gathered there, and walked over to them.

Willow sat on the couch, a computer on her lap, reprogramming the Buffy-bot. Tara stood, nearby, while Anya and Xander were in conversation by the fireplace. They all looked up, as Elizabeth entered the room.

"Did you sort things out with Dawn?" asked Tara.

"I don't know," said Elizabeth. "I hope so. She said I could stay here. So… yeah." She gave a nervous laugh. "Sorry, this whole thing's just… mega-weird." She sighed, then noticed Willow. Her eyes lit up, and she almost ran over to the couch. "Oh, are you reprogramming?"

"Yeah," said Willow. "I'm trying to get rid of that thing where she stakes the gravestones."

Elizabeth leaned across the arm of the couch, and peered at the computer screen. "Hang on, that's not going to be a glitch in the programming," she said. "That's going to be a glitch in the cognitive visual recognition sensors in the mainframe."

Willow looked up at her. "How do you know that?"

"I'm really good with machines," said Elizabeth. "Can I try?" She sprung back to her feet, digging a small, black keychain screwdriver out of her jeans pocket. She raced over to the Buffy-bot, unscrewing a panel in her head and adjusting a number of switches and levers.

"Buffy wasn't good at machines," said Anya.

"Really?" asked Elizabeth, still fixated on her repair-work. "What'd she do in high school, then?"

"Fought monsters," said Xander. "Saved the world. That kind of thing."

Elizabeth glanced up at him. "Yeah, obviously," she said. "I did that, too. I meant besides that stuff."

"Oh, oh, I get it!" Willow cried. "This is one of those things. You know, because Buffy was the Slayer, so she spent all her spare time training and learning to fight and stuff, but Elizabeth doesn't have super-strength or anything, so she spent all her spare time learning to defeat monsters a different way."

"Could you guys please stop calling me Slayer?" asked Elizabeth, as she went back to work. "I hate that."

Everyone looked at everyone else.

"No one called you Slayer," said Xander. "We were calling Buffy the Slayer."

Elizabeth shuddered at the word. "I'm surprised she let you get away with that."

"Well, it's what she was," said Willow. She frowned. "Were you called Slayer, too?"

Elizabeth's eyes shot up at Willow, her entire expression dark and angry. "I am no one's 'Little Slayer', you got that?" she said, waving the screwdriver at Willow. Then the anger dripped off her face, and she gave a little wince. "Sorry," she said. "I've just got… sort of bad experiences with that name."

"Okay," said Xander. "Slayer time is over. Nerd time is starting."

Elizabeth grinned, as she turned back to the Buffy-bot. "I can go with that." She made another tweak with the screwdriver, then started putting the paneling back on. "There. Oh, and I fixed this other thing in there, which was all jumbled and messed up and making the robot act all… sort of… you know. Roboty. But now that's fixed, so it'll act all not-as-roboty."

Willow leapt up, stopping Elizabeth before she could completely replace the paneling. She looked inside, at what Elizabeth had done. It was actually fairly ingenious. Elizabeth had essentially rerouted the power from some systems into others, using a really smart little trick to make the robot work about ten times better. It was fairly incredible.

"You're so…" Tara hesitated. "I guess I just can't believe you're here."

"Oh," said Elizabeth. She drummed her fingers, nervously, against the Buffy-bot's arm. "Did I do something wrong? I mean, I can—"

"No, it's fine," said Tara. "We just… weren't really expecting this."

"Neither was I," said Elizabeth. "But now that I'm here, you know. I can make it work. And it looks like you guys could really use the help." She gave them a smile, then turned to Willow. "So, is it okay?"

Willow looked up from the Buffy-bot. "Yeah," she said. "I mean… it's sort of amazing. Ingenious."

Willow reattached the panel back onto the Buffy-bot's head, and gave the robot a gentle pat.

It wasn't until later that night, when Elizabeth was out of the room, that Willow came back in and unscrewed the panel. Using a flashlight and a screwdriver, Willow fixed the little wiring mistake she'd found earlier. One tiny little flaw in this absolutely ingenious bit of repair work. Willow figured it didn't really matter.

She never mentioned it to Elizabeth.

* * *

Elizabeth had nearly drifted off to sleep, when she heard crying coming from the room beside hers. She crept out of bed, and made her way over to Dawn's room. She creaked the door open. "You okay?"

Dawn sniffled, and tried to hide her tears. "Go away."

Elizabeth crept into the room, shutting the door behind her. "I know I'm new at the whole sister thing," she said, "but I've never been a fan of late night cry-a-thons."

"I just miss her," said Dawn, into her pillow. "I miss her, and Mom, and… everyone."

Elizabeth sat down on the edge of the bed, hands in her lap. "I know."

"I wasn't a real person, and Buffy was," said Dawn, "but she still leapt into that portal thingy and… I watched her die, and it was terrible, and I can't forget that."

Elizabeth nodded. "Yeah," she said. "You don't forget something like that."

Dawn sat up. "You saw someone die, too?"

"Yes," said Elizabeth. She gave a small sigh. "And I always just assumed I'd have to see it all over again."

"Why?"

Elizabeth said nothing for a moment. Then she looked down at Dawn. "It's so hard coming face to face with death like that, isn't it? Because you'd do anything to save them, but you know you can't. There's nothing you can do."

"Yeah," said Dawn. "I know. There was nothing I could do. But I still…" She hesitated.

"Have nightmares about it?" Elizabeth asked.

Dawn nodded.

Elizabeth wrapped her in a tight hug. "Me too," she said to Dawn.

"Buffy used to help me, sometimes," said Dawn. "When I got scared. Especially when I was young, and I kept seeing monsters in the shadows. She'd come into my room and say she'd fight the monsters away." Dawn sobbed into Elizabeth's shoulder. "But now she's gone, and there's no one left to scare them off!"

Elizabeth said nothing for a moment. "There will be," she replied, a new determination in her voice. "I'll make sure, Dawn. For you. I'll make sure there's someone around to scare away the monsters."

"Really?" asked Dawn.

"Really," said Elizabeth. "I may not be superhuman, but I promise. I'll keep you safe."

Dawn sniffed. "Will you… stay with me, in here, tonight? Just until I fall asleep?"

Elizabeth smiled at Dawn. "Of course I will."

Elizabeth stayed there, in the dark, rubbing Dawn's back as she cried her eyes out. Eventually, exhaustion over-took her, and the tears ceased, as Dawn drifted into sleep. And as she did, the hint of a smile appeared on her lips.

"I love you," Dawn said.

Elizabeth stopped rubbing Dawn's back. She sat, frozen, her hand resting on the fabric of Dawn's pajamas. For a few long minutes, there was nothing but silence in the room.

"Yeah," said Elizabeth.


	5. Chapter 5

_Two Weeks Later_

"I've got to go," said Tara, as she passed through the kitchen. "Xander says that Anya's freaking out and needs someone to calm her down, and I guess my name came up."

"Oh, I can go, too," said Willow.

"I think it would be better if it was just one of us," said Tara, picking up her purse. "Xander says she's a little overwhelmed." She stepped forward, and whispered, "Bad prophecies coming through from the demon world, that kind of thing."

"Bad prophecies?" asked Elizabeth, as she got the milk out of the fridge. "Is this something I should know about?"

"Oh, no," said Tara, shrugging her purse onto her shoulder. "It's not anything really important, it's just something that comes up every so often, and Anya kind of freaks out until it goes away."

"Wow, prophecy migraines," said Elizabeth, putting the milk down on the counter. "That's different."

"Well, if I come over, I could do a spell or something," said Willow. "You know? Make it all better?"

Tara put her hands over Willow's. "Willow," she said, softly. "You're using too much magic."

"No, I'm not," said Willow. "I'm using just the right amount of magic."

Elizabeth looked up, and met Tara's eyes. Elizabeth nodded at her.

"Willow, we're worried about you," Tara said. "You can't fool around with magic like you've been doing. You're going to get in trouble."

"But that's my role on the team," said Willow. "I'm the magic-person, and Elizabeth's the tech-person, Xander's the snack-getting person, and you're — well, you're my everything." She cuddled Tara, and Tara gave a small laugh.

The phone rang, and everyone jumped. Elizabeth looked over at Willow and Tara, not sure whether or not she should answer. Willow darted over and picked up the phone, instead. "Hello?"

The initial plan to use Elizabeth in case Dawn's dad called had been thrown out the window pretty quickly. The monks had done far too good a job implanting Dawn into all of their memories, and Elizabeth had none of those. She had… well, they suspected she had most of the same memories all the rest of them had had, before Dawn had ever been created. Well, those and a bunch of memories about some mysterious journey she'd gone on, in late high school. But Elizabeth never wanted to talk about that.

Willow breathed a little sigh of relief, as she heard the voice on the other end of the receiver. "Oh, Giles," she said. "Yeah, we're all still here. Everything's fine. What's up?"

Tara glanced over at Elizabeth, and mouthed, "Got to go!" Elizabeth waved at her, and Tara turned and walked out the front door.

"Oh, okay, but that's not really a me thing," said Willow. "That's more an Elizabeth thing." She paused. "No, she's the one who does that stuff, now. I'm just, you know. The magic-person." She paused again. "Yeah, she's around. Here." She handed the phone over to Elizabeth.

"Hello?" Elizabeth asked. She gave a small smile. "Oh, yeah, of course I know how to fix that. That's totally easy." Her smile faded a hair. "No, Willow's fine. She's just more into the magic stuff, recently, I guess." She put her hand over the receiver, and mouthed, "You okay?"

Willow gave her a grin that looked only slightly forced, and nodded.

Elizabeth moved her hand away from the receiver, and kept listening. "Yuh-huh," she said. "Okay, sure. We can go over that when I get to the Magic…" She trailed off, and her smile faded away. "Oh, no, really? What kind of demon?"

"Another demon?" Willow asked.

Elizabeth put her hand over the receiver. "Just rumors," she said. "Down by the mall." She took her hand away. "Any idea what we're dealing with, or is it just one of those maybe-demon-maybe-not things again?" She paused, then gave an annoyed sigh. "Great, so it's business as usual."

Footsteps echoed down the stairs, and Dawn appeared in the doorway to the kitchen. Elizabeth flicked her eyes over to Dawn, then back to the phone.

"Oh, I should probably tell you," Elizabeth continued. "I think Anya's going to be in late today. Willow and Tara said that she…" She paused. "Oh, I guess I didn't need to tell you. Do you have any idea what this prophecy stuff is…?"

Dawn came into the kitchen, and gave Willow a good morning hug. Willow tried to catch Elizabeth's eye, and gave her a pointed cough. Elizabeth seemed confused. Willow nodded at Dawn, and Elizabeth mouthed an "oh".

"Listen, I've got to go," said Elizabeth. "Dawn's here." She paused. "Yeah, okay. See you soon. Bye." She hung up, and turned around to face Dawn. She stuffed a hand into her pocket, and gave a little wave. "What's up?"

"The sun, I guess," said Dawn.

Elizabeth tapped her fingers against the countertop. "Oh!" she said. "I… made you breakfast!"

Dawn glanced over at the stove, but there was nothing cooking. She glanced around, and spied the setup on the top of the peninsula. "You took out the milk," she said.

"But I put it by the cereal," said Elizabeth. "And… look!" She picked up the bowl, and waved it. "A bowl!"

Dawn slid into the chair at the peninsula, as Elizabeth put the bowl down. "It's very nice."

"How are you doing, this morning, Dawny?" Willow asked her.

"Good," said Dawn, as she poured herself a bowl of cereal. "I'm staying over at Janice's tonight."

Willow frowned. "Oh," she said. "Again?"

"We sort of have this super movie marathon we're doing," said Dawn, as she poured the milk. "It's really cool. First, we watched every episode of Friends. And then, we moved on to Scrubs. And just on Monday, we found this really cool new show called CSI, and we're going to watch that, tonight."

"I think that show might be a little gory for you, Dawny," said Willow. She looked up at Elizabeth, pointedly.

"I… don't really watch that much TV," said Elizabeth.

"Come on," said Dawn to Willow. "You guys fight vampires and demons and bad stuff all the time. I've seen way worse."

"Yeah, but that was in the spirit of saving the world," said Willow. "And besides, that show has adult topics and stuff. And that's not right for little Dawny." She looked over at Elizabeth. "Tell her."

Elizabeth shrugged, but said nothing.

Dawn dug into her cereal, and ate another spoonful.

"Besides," said Willow, "we all thought you were going to the big meeting tonight. Elizabeth was doing that for you."

Dawn stirred her cereal with her spoon, but didn't say anything.

"She's making a great big speech about taking back the night," said Willow. "And she's going to get everyone to help out, and do patrols and stuff."

"It's going to be great," Elizabeth said. "And it's so important! Someone's got to do something. This Sunnydale's super-demon-central, and without any superhuman people around, we're like an all you can eat monster buffet. So we get everyone in Sunnydale together. Fight back. Take back the night!"

"Sounds like Mom," Dawn muttered.

Elizabeth paused. "Huh?"

"Nothing."

"No, what did you say?" asked Elizabeth. "What about…" her voice cracked, and she took a moment. "…Mom?" she continued, her voice hushed.

"With the Hansel and Gretel monster," Dawn said to Willow. "Remember?"

"Joyce sort of went a little nuts, once," Willow confessed to Elizabeth. She turned back to Dawn. "But we checked it out with Giles, this time. And there aren't any evil monsters or demons that are manipulating our emotions. It's a good idea."

" _You're_ not going to the meeting, though," Dawn said to Willow.

Elizabeth looked over at her. "You're not?"

Willow swung her arms, nervously. "Well, it's just… the last time this happened, I was nearly burned at the stake," she told Elizabeth. "Joyce called this meeting, and then the town went all witch-hunty and tried to kill me because of, you know. The magic thing."

Elizabeth's eyes widened. "I never knew."

"It's not a big deal," said Willow.

"Yeah, you were just almost killed by your own mom," said Dawn, her spoon in her cereal. "Not a big deal at all."

Elizabeth went over to Willow. "Listen," she said. "I know it's easy to create an angry mob with fear and scary stories. But that's not what I'm trying to do. That's not what tonight is. I'm not showing people that they should be afraid. I'm showing them they can be strong." She leaned against the peninsula. "It's not just fear that brings people together. It's hope. And this town's been so afraid for so long. Fear makes a mob, but hope makes an army. I have to show these people that they shouldn't be afraid. Show them the monsters, and show them how we can beat them."

"I know," said Willow. "I mean, we've been planning this for a while, and we've even got that vampire we caught yesterday, so we can do the whole demonstration. It's just… what's to stop them going all angry mob on us?"

"Me," said Elizabeth, with a grin.

"Not even you're _that_ convincing," Dawn muttered into her cereal.

Elizabeth crossed her arms. "Just you watch."

Dawn gave a small laugh and shook her head, then shoveled another spoonful into her mouth.

Elizabeth sighed. "Well, I'd better go check in with Giles," she said. She glanced over at Willow. "Wills, you coming?"

Willow faltered. "I should probably stay here," she decided. "You know. Keep Dawn company."

Elizabeth gave a little laugh. "Willow, she's fifteen," said Elizabeth. "She doesn't need a babysitter."

"Well, I know that," said Willow. "But she's also sweet little Dawny, and she needs…" Willow trailed off, as Dawn gave her a death-glare. She looked back up at Elizabeth, and gave a little smile. "Or, you know what? On second thought, I like the whole going with you thing. Let's do that."

"Great!" said Elizabeth, as she picked up the keys to the front door.

Willow turned to Dawn. "We'll be back later, okay?"

Dawn didn't look up from her cereal, just nodded.

Elizabeth raised her eyebrows at Willow, who picked up her own purse, and they both strolled off towards the front door.

"I love you," Dawn called after Elizabeth.

Elizabeth paused by the front door, her face completely blank, her hand resting on the doorknob, fingernails clicking along its brassy exterior. For a moment, she said nothing, the crisp morning air flowing into the house.

"Yeah," said Elizabeth.


	6. Chapter 6

"I think there's something wrong with Dawn," Willow told Elizabeth, as they walked towards the Magic Box. They passed a green car, and, across the street, an old woman Willow knew as Mrs. Cadamar waved at them. Willow waved back.

"Really?" asked Elizabeth, kicking a stray rock so that it skipped across the sidewalk in front of her. "She seems okay to me."

"Well, usually, she's all loud and attitudey and stuff, but lately, she's just been kind of quiet and reserved," said Willow. "I mean, maybe we aren't spending enough time with her."

"She said she wanted independence," said Elizabeth, kicking the rock again. "I'm just giving her what she wants."

"I guess," said Willow.

"Look, I know she's upset about Buffy," said Elizabeth. She kicked the rock a third time. "I get that. I mean, she comes into my room crying some nights because she misses Buffy so much. And I know I'm not going to be able to make her completely better again. I'm just doing my best."

"No!" Willow cried. "Elizabeth, I'm not saying you're at fault, here, or anything. I mean, you're amazing, and we all love you and—"

"I'm still not Buffy," said Elizabeth, her eyes fixed on the ground. "I know." She kicked the rock a little too hard, this time, and it skittered off into the side of a trash can.

"But that's okay," Willow insisted. "I mean, you're okay with it, right?"

Elizabeth looked up. "Willow," she said, "Buffy sounds amazing. I know I'm not a superhero, I know I can't give that back, but… if she was like that, then I can be like that, too." She gave a smile. "You've got no idea how liberating that is! To live in the shadow of someone who was so wonderful, after so long living in the shadow of someone who…." The smile dropped off Elizabeth's face. "Never mind."

Willow frowned. She wanted to ask whose shadow Elizabeth had been living in in her world, but Willow knew, by now, that there was no point in asking. Elizabeth never answered those kinds of questions. It was part of that big section of her life that she wouldn't talk about, no matter what, and none of the Scoobies had gotten her to open up.

Except that they were pretty sure Elizabeth had been in Hell.

"That's why tonight's so important," Elizabeth continued, her eyes imploring Willow. "Because this is what Buffy did to the people around her. She gave them hope, and courage, and determination. I want to do that, too. I might be a normal human girl, but I was still born Buffy Summers. And I'm making sure this town has a long future ahead of it. I'm here, I'm not going anywhere, and even the worst monsters have to realize that. If I've got an army behind me, they'll go running. Together, we can beat back anything."

"I just don't think I want to go to the meeting," said Willow.

Elizabeth nodded. She stared straight in front of her, as she walked, her hands in her pockets. "I get that," she said. "Just… think about what it would mean if you did. People are scared of stuff they don't understand, but if you're there to explain, show them how magic can help — they'll love it. They won't try to kill you, Willow. They'll adore you. Little kids will all try to be like you. You can be a role model, an inspiration. Can you imagine that?"

"Oh, but that's never…" Willow trailed off. "You really think so?"

"JK Rowling is richer than the Queen," Elizabeth pointed out.

Willow took a deep breath. "Okay," she said. "Maybe I will."

Elizabeth gave Willow a one-arm hug. "Thanks," she said, a little quieter. "You've got no idea how much that means to me."

"Tara might be a little upset, though," said Willow. "I mean, she says I use too much magic."

"You have used more since I first arrived," Elizabeth noted. She pulled out of the hug. "Not that I'm trying to be pushy or anything. I've just noticed, since I've been here, you've been all with the magic and less with the high tech."

"That's nothing to do with you!" Willow protested. "I just… like magic. You know." She looked over at Elizabeth. "You don't think I'm using too much, right?"

Elizabeth gave a small smile. "You use as much as you want," she said. "I'll still be your friend, no matter what."

Willow grinned, because she'd missed this so much since Buffy died, and it was wonderful having it back again. Having Buffy back again.

"So, what's up with Anya, anyways?" asked Elizabeth, stuffing her hands back into her jeans pockets.

"Oh, it's just this prophecy that comes up a lot," said Willow. "You know, one of those things in the demon world that freaks her out. Someone's coming, Dark Lord, yada yada yada, she freaks, we comfort her, everything's back to normal. Although, it hasn't been happening as much, recently. Since, you know. Buffy."

"Wait a sec," said Elizabeth. "'Dark Lord'? That sounds like super Big Bad territory right there."

"No, it's nothing," said Willow. "Nothing ever happens. I mean, actually, stuff happens, but considering it's Sunnydale and everything, it's nothing out of the ordinary. No Super Big Bads or anything. Just Anya freaking out, and someone goes and comforts her, and then, you know, goodness again."

"But you said things still happen," said Elizabeth.

"Well, yeah, but they're little things," said Willow. "Always unrelated."

Elizabeth said nothing for a moment, as a blue bus rushed past them. "I've seen this kind of thing before," she admitted, very quietly. "Back when I was 16, all these little things kept happening, stuff we dismissed. But they were all related. It turned out, they were all because of this super evil guy who was trapped in this weird energy chamber thing and couldn't get out. He nearly killed me. I had to be all CPR-ified and stuff." She shuddered. "He was the first one to call me slayer."

"Oh," said Willow. "Well, but you… don't think this is the same thing, right? I mean, it's a different world and—"

"No, it's not the Master," said Elizabeth. "Can't be."

Willow stopped walking. "Wait, the Master?"

Elizabeth turned around. "You know the Master?"

" _You_ know the Master?" Willow asked.

"Um, CPR-ified here!" Elizabeth cried. "Of course I know the Master! I hated that guy!"

"I hated him, too!" Willow cried.

Elizabeth just stared at her. "But how?" she asked. "How'd the Master get into this world? I thought you said the… you know, guy with the frock coat never showed up."

"No," said Willow. "No guys with frock coats, and definitely not around the Master. Darla was sort of… well, she was the Master's right-hand-girl. But she didn't have a frock coat."

"Darla?" Elizabeth exclaimed. "Vampire Darla? I-think-it's-great-to-give-living-people-as-gifts Darla?"

"That's the one," said Willow.

Elizabeth just gaped at her. "Seriously. How do you know these people?" she asked. "They were long dead by the time…" She trailed off. "Except if I hadn't… then they wouldn't be…." Her face fell. "And that means…." Her shoulders dropped, and she sighed. "That sucks."

"What?" asked Willow.

"No, nothing," said Elizabeth. "Just, guess he's dead. In this world." She cringed. "Or worse."

"Who?"

"A friend," said Elizabeth. "A really, really good friend."

"Well, maybe your friend isn't dead," said Willow. "I mean, what's his name?"

"I don't know," said Elizabeth. "I always just called him—"

"…with Dawn," Willow found herself saying. She looked around, as she found herself and Elizabeth passing a green car, Mrs. Cadamar waving at them across the street. A yellow Toyota driving next to them slammed on its brakes.

"What? Really?" asked Elizabeth, kicking a stray rock so that it skipped across the sidewalk in front of her. "I didn't see anything…" She paused, and looked around. Then she turned back to Willow. "It happened again, didn't it?"

"Looks like," said Willow.

Elizabeth glanced down at her watch. "Do you know what time it was before the jump?"

"I think we jumped back a few minutes this time," said Willow. "The guy driving that car definitely didn't expect to be there."

"So… they're getting worse," said Elizabeth. "We're jumping back further."

"Yeah," said Willow. "But I guess until Giles figures out what's causing them, there isn't a whole lot we can do. Just, you know, try to avoid cars and always be on your toes."

Elizabeth said nothing, just stared at the sidewalk as she walked towards the Magic Box.

"Are you okay?" Willow asked.

"What?" Elizabeth popped her head up. "Yeah, fine. Just… jump thingies. Weird."

"I think everyone finds them weird," said Willow. "But at least it's just a few minutes."

Elizabeth stared ahead, not saying anything. Her face seemed to be melting into something so terribly sad that it hurt Willow to even look at her.

"You sure you're okay?" Willow asked.

"I'm fine, it's just… Will, the Master. He's not still around in your world, right?"

"No," Willow said. "Buffy killed him." She frowned. "Why? You don't think the Master came back to life and started these jump thingies, right?"

"No," said Elizabeth. "That's not… I mean, I'm just thinking, if the Master existed in this world, then that means…" She shivered. "I know who else exists here. And I bet _he_ isn't dead."

"Who?" asked Willow.

Elizabeth just shook her head, and continued walking.

* * *

That evening, Elizabeth gathered her weapons together into a duffle bag, then swung the bag over her shoulder. She checked her reflection in the mirror, and wiped a bit of smeared mascara from the corner of her eye. Then she grinned, and stepped out of her room.

"Willow? Tara? Anya? Xander? Dawn?" she called. "You guys ready?"

"I've been ready for hours," Anya complained.

"Dawn's at Janice's, remember?" Willow called back.

"She is?" asked Elizabeth. She thought a moment. "Oh, yeah. She mentioned that, didn't she?" She shrugged, then raced down the stairs, and found herself face-to-face with the Scoobie gang. "Total vampire-staking fun-time anyone?" she asked, raising the bag a little.

"Sounds good to us," said Willow, as they all piled out the door.

Outside, on a moonlit suburban street, the Scoobies and Elizabeth walked, in a group, down the sidewalk, occasional cars rushing past them. Elizabeth led the group, her excitement bubbling into her every action, trying to contain herself from bursting into a sprint.

"So," said Tara. "We're finally doing this."

"I know!" said Elizabeth. "I mean, not to be all major spaz or anything but… it's great! All the lives I'm going to save, the people I'm going to help! I told Dawn, when I first got here, I was going to get rid of the monsters, and now I can really do it. Make this town safe. Even the mayor is supporting me!"

"And considering the last mayor of Sunnydale tried to eat us, I think that makes this mayor of Sunnydale extremely progressive," said Xander. He hesitated. "Unless he tries to eat us."

"You didn't meet the guy who founded Sunnydale in the first place," said Elizabeth. "Richard Wilkins? Complete nutcase. I…" she looked around, a little nervously, "researched him." She cleared her throat, and her nervousness melted into her previous happy excitement. "But okay, you gotta hear this. Wilkins? He had this thing about wanting to turn into a giant snake in, like, a hundred and fifty years, and needed some weird immortality thing to make it work. Seriously. A giant snake! I mean, who sees a snake and thinks, 'Ooh, slithering around on my belly, that's definitely a life goal'?"

"Giant snake?" asked Tara.

"Don't worry," said Elizabeth. "Immortality thing didn't work. Wilkins was long dead before he could go through with any of this stuff."

Willow and Xander looked at one another.

"Well, I think the meeting is a good idea," said Anya, completely ignoring the change in topic. "Getting all the people in Sunnydale to help us patrol. The whole keeping it a secret thing always seemed a little silly to me. All the demons know. All the people who matter know. The only people who don't know are the ones who wind up getting eaten."

"But they won't get eaten," said Elizabeth, "because we'll show them how to fight back. We'll inspire them, show that all the uber-evil stuff isn't unstoppable. That's what I was telling Willow, earlier this morning. Fear makes a mob, but hope makes an army."

"I'm surprised you got the Willow-Meister to go at all," said Xander. "I thought she was staying behind."

"She was," said Elizabeth, beaming, "but I talked her into going." She gave two little skips, the weapons clunking in the bag over her shoulder in time to her footsteps, her feet almost floating across the ground with every sashay.

Tara wrapped an arm around Willow's waist. "You sure you're okay with this?" she asked.

"Fine," said Willow. "I mean, still nervous and stuff, but Elizabeth's right. I should go. Make sure people see that magic is a good thing. You know, so they don't go all witch-hunty again."

"Just tell them you're fighting Lord Voldemort, and you'll have pretty much every kid in the world beating back vampires with overpriced Harry Potter books," said Xander.

"Well, I think I'll just stick to vampires," said Willow. "I mean, Giles is taking that vampire we caught yesterday to the meeting, right? Maybe I can do something to it. Like make a shield around it or something."

"Just don't do anything you're not comfortable with," Tara told her.

"No, I can do this," Willow insisted. "If the crowd starts getting all freaked out, Elizabeth will make them stop. Right?"

"I won't have to," said Elizabeth, with a grin. "Because you're going to be all Willow-Super-Awesome." Then, noticing the worry on Willow's face, her grin melted into a sincere smile. "I'll step in. If you have any trouble. I promise, I'll make them see reason."

"Yeah," said Anya, "because Elizabeth can talk anyone into doing anything. The way she talks people around, you'd think she was secretly a demon or something."

Everyone stopped in their tracks. They turned their heads to stare at Anya. Elizabeth's smile looked as if it had tripped over an unforeseen hazard and sprained its ankle.

"What?" said Anya, looking around at the others. "I'm just saying what we're all thinking."

"None of us were thinking that," said Tara.

"Yeah, we don't think that Elizabeth's a demon," said Willow.

"You don't?" asked Anya. She looked at each of the Scoobies, in turn, then over at Elizabeth. "Really?"

Now the smile really did come off Elizabeth's face. She crossed her arms, and gave Anya a pointed glare. "I'm not a demon," she said. "You want Spike to try to hit me again, just to prove it?"

Anya looked down at the ground. "No."

Elizabeth gave a curt nod, then turned around and started walking again, her ponytail swishing against her back. The group followed her. Anya drifted to the back of the group, still staring down at the sidewalk. She scuffed her shoes along the ground as she walked.

"I'm just saying Buffy wouldn't have done this type of thing," she mumbled.

Elizabeth swung around, and stomped over to Anya, her eyes blazing, her fingers twitching. "Okay, that's it," she said. "You're going to listen to me, right now! I know I'm not Buffy. I get that. But that doesn't make me a demon. And if you don't feel like hanging out around me, then go ahead and leave. I'm not stopping you!"

Anya gave a little pout. "Buffy wouldn't have yelled at me, either," she said.

"Yeah, she would!" said Willow.

"Except there would probably have been a lot more punching involved," added Tara.

Xander put his arms around Anya. "Guys, she didn't mean it," he said, softly. "She just… doesn't think before she talks, sometimes." He looked over at Elizabeth. "I mean, you know it's hard, not to compare you to—"

"I know," said Elizabeth. "I'm not Buffy. But that doesn't make me evil." Her entire body tensed, as she glared at Anya. "I wasn't evil on Iphidrin. I'm not evil, now. And I will _never_ be evil, anywhere, not to my dying breath! Do you understand?"

Anya opened her mouth to reply, but Xander cut in, first.

"She understands," he said.

Elizabeth lifted her head, the tension draining from her. "Good." She turned on her heel, and marched to the front of the group, leading the others to the meeting.

"I'm surprised Dawn isn't coming," said Tara. "Anyone else think she's been acting weird, lately?"

"She's just upset about losing her sister," said Xander. "It's understandable."

"Tara's right," Willow said. "I'm worried about her. She's been spending more and more time away from us."

"She's just enjoying her newfound independence," said Elizabeth.

"Or maybe she's just trying to get away from you," said Anya.

Elizabeth clenched her fists by her sides, breathing heavily.

"Or," Xander cut in, hastily, "maybe she's just being a normal teenage girl. Anyone think of that?"

"Oooh, maybe she has a secret boyfriend!" Willow said. "I mean, it's about the right age, isn't it? She could be sneaking off, somewhere, to go and make out."

Tara frowned. "Isn't that sort of dangerous in—"

"…I think that show might be a little gory for you, Dawny," Willow found herself saying. She blinked, and looked around. They were back in the kitchen, Dawn still eating her cereal, Elizabeth still standing by the counter. Tara had just left.

Dawn looked about as startled as Willow felt. Elizabeth, on the other hand, seemed completely composed. Normal. Perhaps vaguely interested in her new surroundings, but not ruffled in the slightest. She felt for the bag that had, a few seconds ago, been draped across her shoulder. It was, of course, no longer there.

"Woah," said Dawn. "Major head-rush."

"Wait, but this… this was this morning," said Willow. "How'd we jump back to this morning? That was hours ago!"

The screeching of car brakes rang through the air, and Elizabeth's eyes went wide, a spark of fear igniting inside of them. "None of those guys were driving two seconds ago, were they?" she asked.

They all heard the shattering of metal and glass, as a series of collisions happened outside. Without a second thought, Elizabeth ran towards the front door.

"Wait!" Dawn cried.

Elizabeth hesitated, the door open in her hand, and glanced back over her shoulder, meeting Dawn's eyes.

"I… um… just… be safe," said Dawn.

Elizabeth looked at Dawn one second longer, no expression on her face. Then she slammed the door behind her, with a loud bang that seemed to echo through the entire house.

"She's really upset," said Willow. She wanted to run out and help Elizabeth, but she didn't want to leave Dawn alone. Dawn noticed Willow's unease.

"Go ahead," said Dawn. "I'll be fine."

Willow gave Dawn one last glance, then ran out to help Elizabeth.


	7. Chapter 7

Elizabeth was pulling people out of damaged cars, trying to revive the ones she could revive. Tara soon arrived, running down the sidewalk towards them.

"Are they okay?" Tara asked, as she helped Elizabeth rescue people from the massive pileups.

"Most of them aren't," said Elizabeth. She checked the pulse of the guy she'd just rescued from his crumpled car. She swore. Then she glanced up at Willow. "Do you know CPR?"

Willow nodded.

"CPR-ify this guy," said Elizabeth, gently laying his head against the sidewalk. "I'm going to get more people out."

Willow bent down over the man, and started breathing into his mouth, and compressing his chest. Elizabeth, meanwhile, ran over to assist a woman calling out for help inside a crushed SUV. Tara tried to bandage up the guy's wounds as best she could, tearing up pieces of clothing to create makeshift bandages. The man coughed, and sputtered back into life.

"You're okay," said Willow. "Help's coming."

"Where… where am I?" he asked.

"Exactly where you were this morning," said Willow. "We just had one of those jump things. You're going to be all right."

The man groaned in pain, and Elizabeth called for Willow and Tara to bandage up the woman from the SUV.

"It's terrible," Tara told Willow, as they walked over to Elizabeth's SUV woman. "What could do something like this?"

"I don't know," said Willow. "Giles says he doesn't know of any demon that could do this sort of thing. Well, okay, actually, he said he knows several, except he was pretty sure they're not the ones doing it, because then it'd just be a local thing."

"And these jumps are happening all over the world," said Tara.

They started to bandage up the woman from the SUV, just as the ambulance arrived. It was clear that the hospital was going to be seriously understaffed, but at least it would be something. Willow and Tara helped the paramedics as best they could, but there wasn't a whole lot they could do.

That was when they heard the scream.

They turned, and saw Elizabeth, backing away, in wide-eyed terror, from some random guy who'd been helping her get people out of the crashed cars. He looked youngish, with shoulder-length chestnut-colored wavy hair, sporting a deep tan and piercing blue eyes. He seemed just as confused as Willow and Tara about why Elizabeth was backing away from him.

"Ma'am," he said, in a thick, New York accent, "I just wanna help. That's all I wanna do."

"Get away from me," Elizabeth growled. "Or I swear, I'll kill you." And then she spun around, and ran away, as fast as she could.

"Elizabeth?" Willow called, but Elizabeth didn't answer, didn't even look at them, as she bolted for the house.

"What did I do?" the random guy asked.

But neither Willow nor Tara could answer that. They looked at one another, then ran after Elizabeth.

As they approached the Summers residence, they found Dawn standing in the doorway, Elizabeth running towards her. Dawn looked worried.

"What happened?" Dawn called out to Elizabeth. "What's wrong?"

Elizabeth knocked Dawn out of the way as she flew into the house, and Dawn fell onto the wood floor with a loud thud.

"Ow," said Dawn.

Elizabeth froze. She turned, and stared at Dawn. "Oh, my God," she whispered. "You…"

"Me?" said Dawn, getting to her feet, and rubbing the arm she'd fallen on. "You pushed me!"

"I pushed you," Elizabeth said. Her breathing grew shallow, as she kept staring at Dawn. "I pushed you."

"You could at least say you're sorry," said Dawn.

Elizabeth squeezed her eyes shut, distress washing across her face, and raced up the stairs to her room. She slammed the door.

Willow and Tara sprinted into the house, rushing over to help Dawn.

"Are you okay, Dawny?" asked Willow. She tried to check Dawn over for broken bones, but she didn't actually know how to do that, so she just pretended, the way she'd seen people do in movies.

"Yeah," said Dawn, her eyes fixed on Elizabeth's bedroom door. "But I don't think she is. What happened?"

"We don't know," Tara admitted. She looked over at Willow. "I'd better go check on her."

"Yeah," said Willow.

Tara turned, and darted up the stairs. The moment Tara was out of sight, Willow said a little spell to check Dawn over for injuries and broken things. Okay, no broken things. Good.

Upstairs, they could hear Tara trying the door, could hear Tara calling for Elizabeth, over and over again. Assuring her that Dawn knew it was an accident, that no one was angry at her. That the weird guy was gone, now. That they all just wanted to help her. Eventually, Tara came back down the stairs, again.

"She's locked the door," Tara told them. "And she's not answering. Something's definitely wrong."

* * *

"She does know she's going to miss the meeting, if she doesn't come out, right?" asked Xander, when that evening rolled around again. "Because she was really excited about it last time it was this evening."

"I think we're going to have to run the meeting ourselves," said Tara. "I don't think she's coming out."

"I never thought the meeting was a good idea in the first place," Anya complained, leaning back against the couch cushions.

"Yeah, except for all those times you told us you thought it was a great idea," Xander pointed out.

Anya crossed her arms, and huffed. "Well, it's not anymore."

"Something wrong, honey?" Xander whispered, leaning in and keeping a smile on his face, to try to make it seem like everything was fine and normal in Xander-land.

"I just put in two days of work and got exactly the same amount of money," Anya told them. "That's not right. That's not American."

"Maybe we should just call the meeting off," said Tara, putting her purse down on the coffee table directly in front of where she was standing.

"Oh, but she'd be so disappointed," said Willow. "She's been working on this since she first arrived. It's pretty amazing that she convinced the city council to give her a chance. If it doesn't happen now, she might never get another opportunity."

"I'll try talking to her, again," said Xander, getting up off the couch. "She's got to respond, sooner or later."

He scuttled up the stairs, and knocked on Elizabeth's door. No answer.

"Elizabeth?" he called.

No answer.

"The meeting's starting, soon," said Xander. "And I know you've been talking about it for ages."

A shuffling sound from behind the door. Then, a soft voice, "I can't."

Xander nearly jumped at the voice. "Elizabeth?" He heard a sob, and tried to force the door. "Elizabeth, it's okay, we're here to help."

"Don't come in!" she shouted. There was a thud, as — it sounded like — Elizabeth threw herself at the door. The sobbing was far clearer, now.

"Elizabeth, what's wrong?" Xander asked. "If you're in trouble, we want to help."

Elizabeth slid some note-cards out the crack under her door. "Give the speech for me, please," she said, her voice barely above a whisper.

"Are you sure?" asked Xander. "Because we can—"

"Please," Elizabeth begged. "Please, Xander."

Xander picked up the note cards. "Elizabeth, you know I can't convince people to do stuff the way you can," he said. "No one's going to listen to me."

"They will," Elizabeth insisted. "If you're yourself. Please. Do it for me."

Xander flipped the note cards in his hand. He wasn't really sure what to do. "Okay," he said, at last. "If that'll make you come out."

Elizabeth said nothing for a moment. "It'll help."

"Well, anything for the Beth-ster," said Xander. He gave a grin, but realized it was lost on her, through the door. "I'll… just go let the others know." He started down the stairs, paused, then went back to Elizabeth's door. "Oh, and, Elizabeth?"

Elizabeth didn't answer.

"Just… feel better," said Xander. "We're all worried about you."

Elizabeth didn't answer.

Xander walked back down the stairs. "Well, she actually talked to me, this time," he told the others, stopping one step from the bottom. "But… she's still not coming out."

"What about the speech and the meeting and stuff?" asked Willow.

Xander waved the note cards. "I guess I'm the substitute Elizabeth for the night."

"Did she say why she won't come out?" Tara asked.

"Oh! I vote secret demon transformation!" Anya volunteered, waving her hand in the air.

"She didn't say," said Xander, ignoring Anya. He took the last step down the stairs, then paused, one hand still on the railing. He bent the notecards in his other hand. "She just said that she couldn't, and then she… well, she started crying."

"Oh, my God," Willow breathed. "She started crying?"

Xander didn't say anything, meeting Willow's eyes with the same sense of concern.

"I still say she's secretly a demon," Anya chimed in. "Locked in a Hell Dimension for four years? That can do things to a person."

"Just cut it out, Anya, okay?" Willow snapped.

"Anya, you know she isn't a demon," Tara told Anya. "Spike can't hit her, remember?"

"I don't mean on the outside," Anya said. "There are a lot of different kinds of demon transformations. Like, there was this one time, when this guy was cheating on his wife, and I—"

"I've got to give this speech," said Xander. "I mean, if there was anything else I could do…"

Willow rested a hand on Xander's arm. "Don't worry," she said. "I'll stay here with her. Just in case."

* * *

Willow crept up to Elizabeth's door. She could hear soft sobbing from the other side, and the fact that it was Buffy's voice just made Willow feel even worse. She went over, and stood beside the door.

"Elizabeth?" she asked.

Elizabeth didn't answer, but the sobbing quieted, abruptly.

"I just wanted to let you know, I'm here," said Willow. "I stayed behind." She fidgeted, shifting from foot to foot, not really sure what else to say.

"You should have gone," said Elizabeth, quietly. "I wanted you to feel all cool and superhero-y and stuff."

Relief crashed across Willow as she heard the familiar voice. "Elizabeth, you're… you're talking again!"

Elizabeth didn't reply.

"Or… not," said Willow. "I guess I shouldn't have pushed my luck."

Elizabeth gave a sobby laugh.

Willow rested a hand flat against the door. "Elizabeth, I'm sorry I didn't go. I just wanted to make sure you were okay."

"I don't deserve friends like you," Elizabeth whispered.

"Well, yeah, you do!" Willow protested. "Because you're good and nice and you really care about us, and we're just really caring about you, too. And we don't know what happened to make you like this, but we all really want to help."

"It's just been… hard," Elizabeth said. "Since… you know. I came back. Four years travelling, and dropped off two years in my own past. Dealing with everything. Karanon and Fortupin and… Iphidrin. All that blood, Will, all that screaming and death…" She took a deep breath. "I thought that would be the hardest thing. But then, when Mom died, it was just…" She trailed off, and Willow waited for several long moments, but Elizabeth never continued.

"You know you can tell me anything," Willow urged. "I mean, I don't want to pry, but it's pretty obvious to all of us that something happened in your world that you don't like talking about, and since, you know, you think our world's great compared to your world, even though our world has the Hellmouth and demons and stuff, whatever happened there has to be pretty bad, and—"

"I wish…" Elizabeth started, but she didn't finish.

Willow faltered. "Could you phrase that so it doesn't have the 'wish' word in it?" she hazarded. "Because wishing leads to vengeance demons and yucky stuff."

Elizabeth's sobs increased. "I just want my friend," she said, between sobs. "That's all I want."

"You mean the friend you were telling me about, before?" Willow asked. "Because… he could still be alive, you know. I mean, anything's possible."

"He's not," said Elizabeth. "And if he is, I'll probably have to kill him." And that made her cry even harder.

Willow tried to shush her, but it was sort of a hard thing to do through a door. "Why?" Willow asked. "Who's your friend?"

"You're never going to believe me," said Elizabeth.

"I've been living on the mouth of Hell my whole life," Willow told her. "I'm pretty sure I'll believe you."

Elizabeth's sobs quieted. "You know how vampires aren't really people anymore?" asked Elizabeth. "Because their souls go all poof, and a demon sets up shop in their bodies instead? Well, my friend… has a soul. A human soul. But he's still a vampire."

Willow couldn't even speak for a moment, she was so stunned. Because of course, it was totally obvious, why hadn't she thought of that right away? After all, who else would Buffy call for, in the middle of her worst hour?

"Angel?" Willow asked.

The sobbing stopped completely. There was silence from the other side of the door.

"Elizabeth," said Willow, "this friend of yours. It's Angel, right?"

"Angel's here?" she asked, in a very small voice.

"Yeah," said Willow. "I mean, he isn't _here_ here, but he's just down in LA. I have his phone number."

"He… he has a soul?" Elizabeth asked. "He's not all evil-killy Angel, right?"

"No, he's good old normal soulful Angel," said Willow. "If I get you his number, will you come out?"

Elizabeth said nothing for a moment. Then, "I can't."

Willow felt her face drop. "Why not?"

"I'm… scared," Elizabeth confessed.

"Well, if you let me in, maybe I can help you not be scared anymore," Willow offered.

"Don't come in."

"What are you scared of?" Willow asked. "Was it that guy you met, this morning?"

"No."

"Then what?"

Elizabeth said nothing for a moment. Then, in a small voice: "Can you give me the number? For… Angel, I mean? Could you slide it under the door?"

Willow hesitated, but she decided that this was as much as she was going to get. She went downstairs to look up Angel's number.


	8. Chapter 8

It was a phone call Angel had never, ever, in a million years expected.

"Hello?" he said.

"Angel?" came Buffy's voice. "Is that really you?"

If Angel had had any breath, he wouldn't have been able to breathe. Because this wasn't the Buffy-bot. This was Buffy. Real, actual Buffy. He could tell.

"Buffy?" he asked. "I… I heard you…"

There was sobbing from the other end of the phone, and Angel felt his heart break.

"I told you to find me!" Buffy shouted at him, through her tears. "I told you to meet me! And you never came. You never showed up. I've been waiting for you for so long, and you never, ever showed up!"

"Showed up?" Angel asked. "Showed up where? What—"

"1997!" Buffy cried. "Sunnydale! I told you to find me, remember? Back when I gave you that Dalek weapon. Why didn't you come? Why didn't you see me again? I've been so alone!"

And that was when it hit Angel who this was. And it hit him like a ton of bricks. For a moment, he couldn't even form words.

"You didn't have to give me the message," came the voice from the other end. "I just needed you, here. I needed you around. You don't know what it's been like, having to face everything on my own. You, you…" she trailed off, and sniffed. "You don't know what I'm talking about, do you? Of course you don't. None of that happened in this timeline. You're just normal Angel, and you never—"

"Elizabeth?" Angel asked.

Elizabeth said nothing.

"Elizabeth, that's you, isn't it?" he asked.

"Yeah," said Elizabeth, in a quiet voice.

Angel tried to ask fifty questions at once, but that didn't really work with his voice-box. Eventually, his brain settled on one he could vocalize. "How?"

"I don't know," said Elizabeth. "I just wound up here. Why are _you_ here?"

"I did what you told me," said Angel. "1997. Sunnydale. I met you exactly when and where you told me to. I gave you the message. Apparently, that was paradoxical enough to flip me into this timeline. I've been here ever since."

"So… there's another Angel wandering around?" asked Elizabeth. "Like, an evil-killy one?"

"As far as I know, there's just me," said Angel. "I think I started bleeding through in 1898, until I flipped over. This timeline's Angel? I'm pretty sure he's dead." Angel frowned. "I guess, when I flipped, I sort of erased him and shoved myself in his place."

"That's what you call a rewrite," said Elizabeth.

"Tell me about it," said Angel. He sighed, and leaned back in his chair. "Look, Elizabeth, I know you're confused and probably a little bit scared — even if you won't admit it. But don't worry. We can fix this. Willow and Anya have sent misplaced people into the correct timeline before. They'll get you back home."

"I don't want to go back," said Elizabeth.

Angel froze. Oh. He really, really should have expected this.

"Elizabeth," he said, in a soft voice, "how long have you been here?"

Angel was pretty sure he knew the answer already. He'd noticed the temporal jumps. He'd noticed the sudden increase in unnatural phenomena. He just really, really hoped that his hunch was wrong.

"About two weeks," said Elizabeth, sheepishly.

Nope. His hunch was spot on.

Angel shook his head. "Oh, Elizabeth, you know what you're—"

"I'll make them stop," Elizabeth whispered into the receiver. "I promise, I'll find a way to make the jumps stop. It's just — Angel, this is a new future. What I saw in 2003 doesn't have to happen anymore! Not here!"

Angel thought he could work out why she was whispering. He guessed that there was someone nearby, trying to listen in on their conversation. Good, so she wasn't alone. Buffy's friends must be looking after her. But that wasn't the most important thing, right now. The most important thing was figuring out how to deal with this situation, and fast.

Before things got a whole lot worse.

"Okay," he said. "Elizabeth. Listen. I'm in LA right now, but I'll be up in a few hours. Okay?"

"Okay."

"I'll see you soon," Angel told her, and hung up. He didn't know how long he had. He might already be too late. But he knew that he had to try. Because if Elizabeth didn't return home, soon, then everyone was in trouble.

Especially Elizabeth.

* * *

When they came back from the meeting, everyone was ecstatic.

"Xander was amazing!" Anya said. "Everyone loved it. Tell her, Xander."

"What can I say?" said Xander. "I put on the Xander charm, and everything worked. The whole town is in major take back the night spirit."

Tara went over and kissed Willow. "Did you find out anything?"

Willow nodded, and took Tara's hands in hers.

"You found out something?" Xander asked. He sat down on the couch, and leaned forwards, elbows on his knees. "Did she tell you what was wrong?"

Willow took a deep breath. "Okay," she said. "She's not coming out of the room, because she's afraid. Something about those four Hell years she won't talk about. And she knows Angel! No, not just that. Angel knows her. I mean, I don't get how or anything, but from overhearing their phone conversation and stuff… I'm pretty sure Angel knows Elizabeth. This Elizabeth. And Elizabeth says she's not letting herself out of her room until Angel gets here."

"Angel's coming?" Xander asked. He threw up his hands into the air. "Well, that's just great. As if we didn't have enough to deal with, let's all invite the crazy ex-boyfriend, too!"

"Willow, do you think this is a good idea?" Tara asked. "If she's feeling crowded, one more person isn't going to help."

"The only reason she stopped crying was because Angel was coming," said Willow. "And besides. If he knows Elizabeth, he'll be able to explain what, exactly, is going on. And what she's so afraid of."

"Maybe it's a really Big Bad," Tara said. "And she knows it's coming. Like, prophecy dreams and stuff."

"But the Beth-ster isn't afraid of monsters," said Xander. "I mean, not like this."

"Which means whatever it is that's got her this freaked out," said Willow, "it's not a monster. It's something way, way worse."

* * *

The moment they heard a car pulling up outside, Willow sprang to her feet, and raced out to the front of the house. There, she found Angel, getting out of his car, his coattails flying with every step.

"How is she?" Angel asked.

"Still in her room," said Willow. "But she's really happy that Xander's speech went well, and I don't think she's been crying since an hour ago."

Angel glanced over at the house. "I better go talk to her," he said, pushing past Willow.

Willow caught him by the arm. "Angel, wait!"

Angel stopped, and looked back at Willow.

"What's going on?" Willow asked him. "Why do you know Elizabeth? Why's she locked herself in her room, and why's she so scared?"

Angel turned around to face Willow. "I'm assuming you offered to get her back," he said. "But she wanted to stay."

"Yeah," said Willow.

"Do you know why she wanted to?" he asked.

"Well, no, but we're pretty sure she's lost someone who's still alive here," said Willow.

"It's a little more complicated than that," said Angel. "I'll explain later, but if we don't get her back to her world, bad things are going to happen. And it's not going to stop with the time jumps. I'm guessing the longer she's here, the worse it's going to get."

"You mean Elizabeth is causing the—?"

"Yes," said Angel.

Willow shook her head. "I don't even know how I'm going to tell her."

"She knows," he said, as he turned and walked into the house.

Willow chased after him. "What do you mean, she knows?"

Angel burst through the door, and confronted Anya, Xander, and Tara in the living room, all huddled around the couch, ears to the window, trying to listen in on Angel and Willow's conversation. They all sprang up from the couch, and tried to look innocent. Willow came in to join them.

"You should all know this," said Angel, very softly. "Because it affects all of you. Elizabeth's a truly wonderful human being, and I know you're probably all attached to her, but she doesn't belong here. The longer she remains in this timeline, the worse things are going to get. You've already seen that. Since she arrived, time's been jumping around like crazy, and the balance between good and evil has been fluctuating between extremes on a minute-to-minute basis."

"Yeah? And what makes you the expert on time jumps, Mister Vampire Undead Guy?" asked Xander.

"Nothing," said Angel. "But since Elizabeth's arrived here, everything's been going crazy, and I'm guessing there's a connection."

"But… maybe there isn't!" said Willow. "Maybe everything that's happening is just a coincidence, and we don't really have to send her back."

"How do you know Elizabeth, anyways?" Tara asked.

"What? No — look, none of that's important," said Angel, slightly confused. "What's important right now is making sure this gets fixed before things get worse. You guys assemble everything we need for a temporal fold, and I'll go talk to Elizabeth."

"So you're asking us to send her back to whatever Hell Dimension we've rescued her from?" Xander asked.

Angel stared at them. "Hell dimension?"

"She hasn't given us enough details to figure out which one," said Anya. "But we're pretty sure it's one of the really, really bad ones."

"We're not sending Buffy — I mean, Elizabeth — back to Hell," said Willow, crossing her arms. "That's final."

"She wasn't in a Hell Dimension!" Angel said. "Her Sunnydale doesn't even have a Hellmouth. Where could you possibly—?"

"How about those mysterious four years she won't ever talk about?" Xander said. "The four years of death and blood and screaming? Elizabeth thinks the Hellmouth is child's play next to what she went through, then."

Angel just gaped at them. "You haven't figured it out, yet?"

"Figured what out yet?" asked Tara.

"Either you're all under a really powerful spell," said Angel, "or you're willfully overlooking a lot of very large clues about what's been going on in Elizabeth's life." He shook his head. "Look, we don't have time to argue. Just trust me on this. If Elizabeth doesn't go home, things are going to get far, far worse. Not just for the world, not just for the universe, but for Elizabeth. And I'm not going to let Elizabeth get hurt. Not again." He turned, and started to race up the stairs.

All the rest of the Scoobies looked at one another.

"Should we do it?" asked Xander.

"I guess we have to," said Tara. "For the world."

Willow looked down at the ground. "It's not fair," she muttered. "It's like… killing Buffy, all over again."

Xander sighed, then came over to comfort Willow. "Look, Will, it'll be okay," he said. "We'll get the stuff together, and if Elizabeth thinks it's a good idea, we'll send her back. Otherwise, we'll find another way. No one's killing Buffy again." He hesitated. "Not that I'm saying Elizabeth is Buffy or anything."

Willow looked down at the ground. And decided Xander was probably right.


	9. Chapter 9

"Okay, we have everything we need for a temporal fold," said Willow, as she arranged the items on the floor. "But… if Elizabeth wants us to do this… Tara doesn't know this spell, so Anya's going to have to help me out."

"All right," said Anya. "But if I bring any vampire versions of you guys here by accident, it's not my fault."

The door to Elizabeth's room opened, and Elizabeth and Angel walked out. It was, perhaps, the oddest thing that Willow had ever seen — someone who looked so much like Buffy, holding hands with Angel, and having there be no sexual tension between them whatsoever. At least, not on her side.

Elizabeth looked just the way she always had, albeit a little redder around the eyes, and snifflier around the nose. She gave all of the Scoobies a nervous smile, but it vanished when she saw the magical items arranged upon the floor in front of the coffee table.

"You're starting already," she said.

"You know we have to do it as soon as possible," Angel told her, giving her hand a reassuring pat. "You told me that."

"I just thought I'd have a little more time." Elizabeth went down the stairs, her eyes fixed on the Scoobies. She seemed determined not to cry this time, although her bottom lip was shaking. Then she ran forwards and hugged Willow, fiercely.

"Elizabeth," said Willow. "Are you okay with this? I mean, if you don't want to…"

"I have to," said Elizabeth. "The longer I stay here, the more messed up the universe is going to be. I get it." She pulled away.

"I'm not going to send you back to Hell," said Willow. "I can't do that."

"Will," said Elizabeth, in a soft voice, looking deep into Willow's eyes. "Please."

Willow hesitated.

"I handled Iphidrin," said Elizabeth. "I can handle this."

Willow gave in, and nodded. Elizabeth patted her on the back.

Then she turned, and swept Xander into a great big hug.

"We're going to miss you," said Xander.

"Yeah," said Anya. "You were a really fun Not Buffy. And now we're going to have to deal with an annoying robot."

Elizabeth pulled out of the hug, and gave Anya a small smile. Then she ran over to Tara, and hugged her, as well.

"We'll always remember you," said Tara.

Elizabeth tried to hold in a sniffle.

"Willow," Angel prompted. "It's time."

Tara pulled out of the hug, as Willow and Anya sat down on the floor, facing each other, the arrangement of magical items spread out between them. Bones on either side of them. A number of candles glowing nearby, along with a set of jaws and several jars of pickled animal-entrails.

Willow looked up at Elizabeth. "You sure?" she asked.

Elizabeth looked over at Angel. "Not really," she confessed. "But I kind of have to."

"You'll be okay," Angel reassured her, a kind smile on his face. "You're strong enough to pull through this. I believe in you."

Just looking at him seemed to make Elizabeth feel better. Elizabeth took a shaky breath, then ran to hug Angel, as if she never wanted to let him go. When she finally did pull away, there was the hint of tears in her eyes. She wiped them away, then stood by Willow and Anya.

"Okay," she said, fixing a brave and determined expression on her face. "Let's do this."

Willow gave Elizabeth a reassuring smile, then looked back at Anya. Anya stared at Willow, expectantly.

"Oh, you want me to lead it this time?" Willow asked.

"Well, I don't exactly want Vampire Elizabeth running around this Sunnydale, too!" Anya snapped.

Willow swallowed, then planted a confident look on her face, and extended her hand outwards, palm up. "Erishan kishallow mayan."

Anya extended her hand out in front of Willow's. "Diprecht. Doh-tehenlo nu-Eryishon."

Willow picked up the vial of sacred sand, and Anya put her hand around Willow's.

"The child to the mother," said Willow.

"The river to the sea," said Anya.

"Eryishon, hear my prayer," said Willow.

Both Anya and Willow closed their eyes, and began to pour the sacred sand onto Anya's palm. Bright blue energy flashed in front of them, radiant blue energy, that seemed to wrap around their hands, burning into the eyes of all those around them. And suddenly…

A sharp shattering sound, as the vial of sand exploded into a million pieces. Everyone ducked, arms over their faces, as shards of glass and specks of sand flew everywhere. With a sudden schwoomping sound, the energy vanished, and the room was back to normal.

Willow and Anya opened their eyes, looking at one another.

"Did you feel that?" Anya asked.

"I don't know what it was," said Willow, "but I felt it."

"That's a Time Lock," said Anya. "I mean, you hear about them, when you're a vengeance demon, but you never think you'll ever actually come across one. And this one…"

"I know," said Willow. "Phew."

"You do realize that none of the rest of us have the first clue what you're talking about," said Xander.

"A Time Lock is when a timeline is considered so dangerous or unstable that it gets locked away," Anya explained. "No one can access it, not even using a temporal fold. D'Hoffran kept warning us that if we didn't do our jobs right, we'd wind up stuck in one."

"My timeline got time locked?" Elizabeth asked.

"That's what it looks like," said Anya.

"Can we unlock it?" asked Tara. "I mean, just to get Elizabeth back?"

"This wasn't some itty bitty little lock," said Anya. "This was more sort of…"

"'Wow'?" Willow offered.

"Yeah, sort of wow," Anya agreed.

"Explain 'wow'," said Xander.

"Well, it was kind of… a bit…" Willow trailed off. "Actually, I'm sticking to wow."

"Basically," Anya explained, "someone sealed this timeline off so that no one would ever, ever, ever be able to open it up again. No matter how powerful a witch they are."

"So I can't go back," said Elizabeth. She sounded a little relieved. "Even if I wanted to, I couldn't go back. We just need to… fix up these temporal jumps, and I can keep living here!"

"You know why that isn't going to work," Angel told her.

Elizabeth looked at the ground, but said nothing.

"Well," said Anya, getting to her feet. "Elizabeth's definitely here to stay. I mean, unless you can find some kind of super key to fit a super lock."

Everyone froze, as Anya said the words, "super key". Anya looked at them, a bit confused. Then, she realized what she'd just said. Her eyes widened.

"I didn't mean that," she put in, quickly.

Elizabeth still looked puzzled. She glanced at the horrified faces surrounding her. "Didn't mean what?" she asked.

"We're not killing Dawn," Willow insisted, getting up off the floor. "Not after everything Buffy did."

"And creating another super big universe destroying portal? Not really the best idea for how to save the world," said Xander.

"There's got to be something else we can do," said Angel. "Maybe if we just used one drop of Dawn's blood, it would make the gateway open for just enough time to get Elizabeth back, and she'd survive that."

"We're not hurting Dawn," Willow said. "That'll just make things worse."

"Then we better find something else," said Angel. "And fast. If we can't do it, someone… else might wind up trying to fix it, someone who'd make things far, far worse." He glanced over at Elizabeth, nervously. Elizabeth just stared straight ahead, a determinedly blank look on her face.

"You think _we'll_ be able to break a Time Lock like that?" asked Anya. "Not likely."

"There's an entire book of spells having to do with time over there," Angel insisted, nodding at the spell book perched on the coffee table. "Are you telling me there's no way to make any of those work?"

"Against a regular Time Lock? Maybe," said Anya. "But not against something like this. I'm not even sure how Elizabeth managed to get out of it in the first place. It should have been impossible."

"Hang on," said Willow. "We've all been overlooking a really, really obvious solution, here."

Everyone turned to Willow.

"Well, just, think about it," said Willow. "This is a _Time_ Lock, and we're dealing with _time_ folds, trying to stop _time_ jumps. We all know someone who can deal with that."

"Willow," Angel warned.

"Oh, you mean…" Xander trailed off, then frowned. "You really think we should?"

"If she's going to leave anyways," said Willow, "we might as well. I mean, we were sort of being, you know. Selfish."

"Willow, no," said Angel, "bad idea."

Xander nodded at Willow, then looked over at Anya. "Honey," he said, with a smile, walking over towards her. "How about we go home for the night?"

Anya seemed slightly puzzled by this. "Huh?"

"I'm with Anya on the 'huh'," Elizabeth agreed.

"Nothing," said Xander, hooking his arm around Anya's and trying to lead her towards the door. "We're just going back to the apartment, now. Before anyone else shows up."

"No one else is showing up," Angel insisted, sternly. "Willow, Xander. Don't. Just… don't."

"Don't what?" asked Elizabeth.

Willow leaned in towards Elizabeth. "Buffy had this friend," she said, quietly, "who wandered around time and space in this space ship called a TARDIS—"

"A Time Lord," Elizabeth breathed.

Willow tried to shush Elizabeth. "Anya's a bit freaked out by him."

Elizabeth went very still. "The Time Lords!" she cried. She looked at everyone around her. "That's who you're going to call? That's who's going to fix this?"

Anya's eyes widened. "What! No! We're not calling any Time Lords! Ever!"

"It's not like there's an army of them or anything," Willow explained. "It's just one guy Buffy knew."

"Not an army?" Elizabeth cried. "Not an army? I've seen it! Last year, with that portal thingy, I saw them. There are billions of them out there, and each one is super smart and has all sorts of powers. All together, they're — oh, God, if you had any clue, if you had any idea how much power they have over the universe, you'd never even think of this! You can't be thinking of this!" She clenched her fists. "Trust me. If you call in the Time Lords, there's no telling where they'll stop. And if they notice there are vampires on this planet, that's it! Earth goes boom."

"We're not calling in any Time Lords," Angel said, pointedly.

"Why not?" said Xander. "It's the only way I can think of to save the world and not kill Dawn. Anya can hide until the Doctor's gone, and Elizabeth will be returned—"

"What?" Elizabeth screamed. She looked around the room, at all of them, her eyes blazing with anger and hurt and terror. She rounded on Xander. "You! What did you say?"

"I… said Anya could hide?" Xander tried, backing away.

"After that!" Elizabeth shouted, still advancing on him. "Who'd you say? Who were you going to call?"

"Just… Buffy's friend," said Willow. "The… you know… Time Lord. The only one there is?"

"The only…" Elizabeth spun around, her eyes dark, an angry expression crossing her face. "Oh, I get it!" She gave a laugh that sounded so hateful and angry that it ground into the bones of all those standing nearby. "He killed them all, didn't he? He got pissed off with their stupid rules, and genocided them out of the universe! That's so him!"

"Genocided who?" Anya asked.

"I… I think it was a little more complicated than that," said Willow. "I mean, I never really found out the details, but Buffy told me—"

Elizabeth turned on Willow. "And what did she know?" Elizabeth shouted. "What do any of you know? I travelled with him for years. I've seen what he's done! To me, to the rest of the universe! He's a monster, a terrible monster, worse than anything you've ever faced before, and… you just wanted to hand me over to him!"

"No, wait, we didn't… the Doctor's not a monster!" Willow insisted. "Angel, tell her…" Willow faltered, as she noticed the stern look on Angel's face. Angel wasn't going to defend the Doctor to Elizabeth, wasn't going to negate anything Elizabeth said about him. That was a little weird.

Elizabeth's breath started coming faster, and there was a look of such pain and torment written across her features that everyone felt uneasy. "I'm not going back," Elizabeth said, her voice hard and cold. "I'm never going back. If he's here, then this town needs me more than ever. I know what he does to Sunnydale in the future, and I'm not letting it happen again!"

And before anyone could react, she bolted out the front door.

Angel buried his face in his hands. "I warned you."

Everyone else just stood around, gawping for a few seconds, staring at the still open front door.

"Okay," said Xander. "And I thought Anya freaked out whenever we mentioned him."

"No, I'm more freaked out in a general 'he's going to erase me from history if he ever finds me' way," Anya supplied.

"Elizabeth already knows the Doctor?" Tara asked. "Because we were sort of… trying not to let her…" She looked over at Willow, and shrugged.

"Well, see, it was good that we didn't mention the Doctor before now!" Willow insisted. "Or she would have flipped out sooner."

"You didn't know," Angel said, clearly not buying a word of it. He shook his head. "The Doctor always calling Buffy 'Elizabeth' didn't set off any alarm bells?"

Xander, Willow and Tara all looked at one another, hesitating for a little too long. "No," they all replied, decisively.

Angel gave them a pointed stare.

Willow fidgeted. "Well, not an alarm bell, but more of a reminder poke," she admitted.

"We thought if she ever met him, she'd sort of like him too much and…" Tara drifted off, a little sheepishly. "We just wanted Buffy back. To stay."

"She still could leave," Xander argued. "The Doctor Elizabeth knows is obviously some… alternate timeline Doctor, who was actually evil. Once she meets Mr. Suave-with-a-Sonic-Screwdriver, she'll run off and we'll never see her again."

"Or maybe it's the same Doctor," said Anya, "but Elizabeth really is turning into a demon, and the Doctor wants to wipe her out of the universe, too."

"It's the same Doctor," said Angel. "And Elizabeth's not a demon. She's got a good reason for acting the way she's acting. If it were Buffy, in her shoes, Buffy would have acted exactly the same."

"And this reason would be…?" Xander asked.

"Elizabeth travelled with the Doctor for four years," said Angel. "The same Doctor you know, but in his own past. He looked different back then — he had wavy, shoulder length chestnut hair and bright blue eyes, and he looked a little older — but he was still the same guy."

"And he wore a green frock coat?" Willow guessed.

"Yes," Angel agreed. "He did."

"Oh, so Elizabeth's mystery monster guy is actually… the Doctor!" said Xander. "Yeah. Okay. Got it." He frowned. "No, actually. Don't got it. Isn't the Doctor… not evil?"

"He's not," said Angel. "But what he did to Elizabeth was… unforgivable."

"What did he do to her?" asked Willow.

"He destroyed her," said Angel. "He claims he didn't know he was doing it, but… well, you can see the results for yourself. The locking herself away, the crying, the outbursts, the pure raw fear — those are all because of the Doctor. And just when all those things got really bad, the Doctor took Elizabeth to Sunnydale, 2003. Her own future. And that was when bad turned into worse."

"What happened in 2003?" asked Tara.

"The Doctor killed everyone," said Angel. "He demolished her home town, killed off her family, and murdered all of her friends. And when he was done, he killed her, too. Her future self." Angel turned to Willow. "That's the Hell she's really running away from."


	10. Chapter 10

Elizabeth ran, her feet hitting the sidewalk with small, rhythmic thuds, the summer night air streaming across her face. She sniffled, and hugged her arms.

"It doesn't have to happen," she muttered to herself. "It doesn't have to happen. It doesn't have to happen."

She felt herself grabbed from behind, and thrown against a wall, a snarly vampire face peering down at her, with evil-looking yellow eyes.

"Actually," the vampire said. "I think you'll find it does." He hissed, and then made a move to bite down on her neck.

He flinched backwards, as a metallic buzzing sound filled the air. A metallic buzzing sound Elizabeth recognized. She shut her eyes.

"No," she breathed. She tried to grab at the wall behind her, her heart pounding. "No, no, no, no, no!" she screamed.

The buzzing sound died away, and the vampire's hands released her, leaving her standing with her eyes shut, back against the wall.

The vampire swore. "Look, it's not the way it seems," said the vampire. "We were just, you know, kissing and stuff. She was into it."

"Leave," said an English accented voice. "Now."

A hurried pattering of footsteps, as the vampire ran away.

Elizabeth opened her eyes, trying to back further into the wall, her fingers twitching against the rough surface. The man before her wasn't exactly who she'd been expecting — a tall, skinny guy in a brown pinstripe suit and red trainers, with spiky brown hair and sideburns. He held a small, thin tube in his hand, and looked over at her, meeting her eyes with his own.

It was him.

She could tell by the way he held himself — like he was better than everyone else. The clothes that didn't quite match, the technology that wasn't appropriate for the time period, and even just the way he looked at her, as if they were back to the way things had been before he'd started hurting her. He even had that same spark in his eyes, when he smiled, the one she used to love so much. Now, it just sent that horrible shiver of fear running across her spine.

"Bad night?" he asked, with a grin.

Elizabeth gathered up her courage and strength. He wasn't unbeatable. He wasn't the ultimate authority in the universe, as much as he might want to think that. He wasn't a god.

"Good thing I found you," he continued, not waiting for a response (like he didn't even care about her at all, typical). "Lots of temporal disturbances going on around this time and place. Figured you'd be up to the challenge. What do you say?"

Elizabeth walked over, and punched him, as hard as she could, in the jaw.

He stumbled backwards, under the blow, and stared at her. "Ow," he said, rubbing his jaw. "What was that for?"

"Ruining my life," she snarled. "Killing everyone I've ever known. Manipulating me. Forcing me to do things against my nature. Turning me into your Little Slayer and torturing me for years back on Earth when you were done!"

The Doctor stared at her. "Elizabeth?"

* * *

"No way," said Anya to Angel. "That's not happening."

"It's the safest thing to do," said Angel. "We haven't had a time jump in a while, now, which means he's probably here already. The moment he sees that Elizabeth got through into this world, he's going to start checking the identities of everyone else around here. He'll find you in two seconds."

"I know about Time Lords," said Anya. "For some reason, vengeance demons that change timelines so that lots of innocent people die really bug them. Rule number one for a vengeance demon: if you want to survive, you avoid the Time Lords. And you're just asking me to throw rule number one out the window." She huffed. "I might as well not have any rules at all."

"The Doctor isn't perfect," said Angel. "But he's incredibly forgiving. If he really believes you've reformed, you'll be fine."

"He's supposed to be the worst," said Anya. "The Uncreator? I know all about him. If he finds me, he won't just kill me. He'll make it so I was never born. Just because I killed a few humans and started a tiny little world-shattering revolution!"

"All you have to do is admit you were wrong and apologize," Angel said. "Trust me, he likes that sort of thing."

"Couldn't I just hide the way I usually do?" Anya asked Xander.

"You know, as much as it kills me to say it," Xander said, "Angel might be right." He paused, then shot Angel a glare. "Just this once!" He looked back at Anya. "It's better to do this now, because… well, he is a time traveler. If he runs into you at some point in the past, before you've actually reformed…"

Anya's eyes widened. "I didn't think of that."

"Don't hide what you were," said Angel, "and let him know you're different and you're here to help, and he'll let you go with a warning."

"Couldn't I go with you, instead?" Anya asked Angel. "You're not going to run into him."

"There's just as much chance that I'll run into him as anyone else," said Angel. "Possibly more. But I've got to get Dawn. If she's the only way to break the Time Lock, we have to make sure we know where she is at all times, until the Doctor leaves."

"You think he's going to hurt Dawny?" Willow asked.

"I don't know," said Angel. "I just don't want to take any chances."

"But there's only one time that the portal could open," said Willow. "And it's already over."

"Um, time machine," Xander said. "Remember, Will?"

Tara came up from the basement, carrying a box filled with a bunch of flashlights and some weapons. "I've got the stuff. We can go find Elizabeth."

"And Giles is on his way over," said Willow. "I just called him."

Angel nodded. "I better go get Dawn," he said. "And if you do find the Doctor, make sure he stays away from Elizabeth. Believe me, you have no idea how bad things can get with those two together."

* * *

"You can't be here!" the Doctor said. "It's impossible. How—?"

"Is this supposed to be some sort of disguise?" Elizabeth demanded. She looked him up and down — at the new face, the new hair, the new body. "Because I know it's still you. I can tell."

"No, it's… just a Time Lord thing," said the Doctor, scratching the back of his neck. "When we die, we — never mind. Listen, Elizabeth. I'm sorry about this, but you have to go back. The two timelines are linked through you, and therefore, any instabilities in your personal timeline affects this entire world. You're the one causing all these—"

"You would say that, wouldn't you?" Elizabeth hissed. She backed away from him. "You made me live through the future once. You want to do it again."

"It's not about me!" the Doctor insisted. "You wound up in 2003 twice. I had to drop you back in the past to make that happen. If I hadn't, all of time and space would have—"

"Then why'd you bring me there in the first place?" Elizabeth demanded. "You knew it was my future!"

"I didn't bring you there," the Doctor said. "We crashed."

"Oh! Right! I forgot! 'Rift energy'," said Elizabeth, making finger quotations in the air. "Massive 'rift energy' from a 'rift in Sunnydale' that threw us into 2003." She glared at him. "There _is_ no rift in Sunnydale!"

"It was from _this_ Sunnydale," the Doctor told her, fiddling with his sonic. "It was _this_ rift that forced us to make that emergency landing. The energy from whatever happens in this timeline in 2003 was enough to bleed into the other one."

"And here you are, in the Sunnydale with the rift," said Elizabeth. "What'd you do? Open the Hellmouth? How many people did you murder in this timeline, so you could make sure that 2003 still happened in mine?"

"Elizabeth, I'm sorry about what you saw in 2003, I really am, but you have to believe me. There was nothing I could have done to save—"

"You could have just laid down and died!" Elizabeth shouted. "Don't you get that? It was you or thousands of innocent people, and you chose yourself!"

"It was Sunnydale or the world," the Doctor told her.

"How long did it take to convince yourself of that?" Elizabeth snapped. "Oh, I know you, Doctor. Everyone here thinks I'm all hell demony, because I'm good at talking people into doing things, but they've never seen you at your best, have they? That's the most important thing with you — never let you talk. Because that's how you manipulate the situation around you. You did it to me. And now you're doing it to yourself. Convincing yourself of a lie."

"I never—"

"Why do you think I fell in love with you?" Elizabeth shouted. "Because of you? Ha. That's a laugh." She rushed towards him, her eyes blazing, fists clenched by her sides. "I hate you. I hate you more than anyone else alive. You're a monster, and everyone is always too blind to see it. Even you."

The Doctor gave a little sigh, and ran a hand through his hair. "So we're back to that, are we?" he asked. "Go on, then. I believe the last thing you called me was soulless, evil, inhuman, and — oh, yes, that's right, you wished you never met me."

"You have a soul," said Elizabeth. "That's the worst thing. Everything you did to me, and you chose to do it!"

"I've told you a thousand times that I'm sorry," said the Doctor.

"Then why won't you stop it?" Elizabeth shouted.

"I can't. That timeline is—"

"See?" said Elizabeth. "You say you're sorry, but that's just words, Doctor! You've never really been sorry. You won't even admit what really happened!" She seethed at him. "All your talk. Your lies. Your mixed messages. I can't believe I ever fell for it!"

"There were no mixed messages," said the Doctor. "I meant exactly what I said."

"Iphidrin?" Elizabeth prompted. "In the Andromeda Galaxy? You remember that? Because I sure do!"

The Doctor's eyes darkened. "There were certainly no mixed messages on Iphidrin."

"You know what I think?" said Elizabeth. "I think if you ever really accepted responsibility for what you did to me, to Sunnydale, to everyone, the guilt would be too much for you to deal with, and you'd completely fall apart."

"And I suppose you'd love that," said the Doctor.

"At least it'd be some form of justice," Elizabeth hissed.

The Doctor put his sonic back into his pocket. "I don't have time for this," he said. "I need to find the other — Buffy, I need to find Buffy. Any idea where she is?"

"Oh, you thought you could weasel your way into other-me's affections?" asked Elizabeth. "You destroyed one Elizabeth, so you thought, hey, that was fun! Let's destroy her all over again!" She crossed her arms. "Guess what? You succeeded. She's dead."

The Doctor gave a small sigh. "Fine, I'll find her myself." He strode off down the street.

"I said she's dead!" Elizabeth called after him.

"Of course you'd say that," the Doctor called back, as he kept strolling away.

Elizabeth watched as his figure faded into night. She knew. The monsters had just arrived in Sunnydale. And it was her job to get rid of them.

Everything was clear.


	11. Chapter 11

The last thing Willow expected on their Elizabeth-finding expedition was for Elizabeth to find them. They hadn't even left the front yard, yet, before they found Elizabeth running right up to them. She no longer looked like she had before, when she'd run away. All traces of fear, hurt, and betrayal were gone. She now looked determined, her jaw set, her eyes fixed on the group. She grabbed the stake out of Willow's hand.

"Good," she said. "You're ready. We're going to need everyone chipping in on this one. He's almost impossible to kill, but we can do it. Where's Spike?"

"I thought you hated Spike," said Xander.

"I do," Elizabeth insisted, tapping the stake against her palm. "But I need him. And Angel. And anyone else you can get." She gave a small sigh. "I thought I'd have more time than this," she murmured.

"Angel's getting Dawn," said Willow. "But Spike's usually around here, somewhere."

"Right here, love," said Spike, stepping out from behind the tree.

"Call me love one more time, and I'll stake you, chip or no," said Elizabeth to Spike. "Now, come on."

"Hang on," said Xander. "Did you tell us what we were fighting, and I just forgot?"

"I think it's not a what," said Willow. "I think it's a who."

"Oh," said Xander. He paused. "No, wait. Actually. Didn't understand that."

Elizabeth crossed her arms.

"I think she might have found the Doctor," Tara whispered.

"Woah," said Spike, raising up his hands. "I'm out." He turned around.

Elizabeth caught him by the arm, trying to pull him back. Spike yanked his arm out of her hands, easily, and spun around to give her a pointed stare.

"The answer is no," Spike said. "I told Buffy, and I'll tell you. When the Doctor's around, I'm not."

"Why're you so afraid of him?" asked Elizabeth.

"He's… got a bit of a thing against me," Spike grumbled. "Because I killed two Slayers. Told me I was as good as dust if he ran into me after 1998."

"Stick around," said Elizabeth, "and I'll make it worth your while."

Spike scoffed. "You can't possibly give me enough money to change my mind."

"Not money," said Elizabeth. "Blood. Time Lord blood."

"Yeah, thanks, but no thanks," said Spike, turning and walking away.

"It's got magical, mystical properties," Elizabeth reminded him. "Blood in the universe your kind were born to crave, remember?"

Spike paused, and swung around to face her. "Listen, Goldilocks," he said. "There's a reason every vampire worth its salt stays away from him. If you're a vampire, and you drink his blood, you don't stay a vampire for long."

Elizabeth looked confused. "What do you mean?"

"I mean he's found a cure," said Spike. "And he injects it into his blood. If you get caught like that, you better just hope you've drunk enough that it'll kill you straight out. Because otherwise, you're going to wind up human again. And I've got no desire to be human again."

Elizabeth digested this information. "Huh."

"Elizabeth, we've met the Doctor," said Willow. "And he's sort of weird, and he likes to take the fall for other people a lot, but in general, he seems kind of okay."

"That's what he does," said Elizabeth. She turned to the others. "That's what happens. He gets you to tell him your deepest, darkest secrets. And then he starts talking. And he can talk you into doing anything. I've seen him talk people into killing themselves for him. Trust me. If we don't stop him, every single person in Sunnydale is going to die." She turned to Anya. "You know about Time Lords. Tell them."

"If he lets me stay alive, I'm a big fan," said Anya. "Otherwise, we should definitely kill him."

A car pulled up by the house, a red convertible with the roof down, Giles at the wheel. He had a bunch of different patrolling gear in a duffle bag on the passenger seat, and jumped out, pulling his patrolling gear with him. "I'm ready to find—" His eyes rested on Elizabeth. "Oh," he said, dropping the gear back onto the seat. "Hello, Elizabeth."

"Giles," said Elizabeth. "This town's in serious danger. You have to believe me."

"Is it?" he asked. "Actually, I thought this evening went rather well. Most demons will probably think twice before attacking Sunnydale tonight."

"She wants us to kill the Doctor," said Willow.

Giles frowned. "I see," he said. He took off his glasses, and rubbed his eyes. "Terribly sorry, but… haven't we had this discussion several times before?"

"Yep," said Xander.

"And, as I recall," Giles continued, "we agreed that despite being arrogant, rude, stubborn, obnoxious, completely mad, utterly immature, and… what was that phrase you used, Xander?"

"Kind of a jerk," Xander supplied.

"Ah, yes," said Giles. "That was the one." He put his glasses back on. "But apart from that, the Doctor's rather an all right sort of fellow."

Elizabeth looked at them all. "You've got no idea, do you? I know who he really is. I was there in 2003 in the other timeline! I've seen what he's done across the universe! I travelled with him for four years!"

"I just don't think this is a good idea," said Tara.

"Okay, you all think the Doctor's great," said Elizabeth. "Fine. So tell me this. Buffy was the Doctor's friend, right?"

Everyone nodded.

"And now she's dead," said Elizabeth. "Think about it. It's a pattern. Doctor meets someone, they go kersplat."

"Buffy's death wasn't the Doctor's fault, though," said Willow. She frowned. "I mean, I don't think it was." That whole year had been kind of confusing, in terms of the Doctor — she could both remember him, and she couldn't, and it made her head hurt if she puzzled it out for too long. "Buffy gave up her life to save Dawn and close that portal. The Doctor wasn't even really there."

"You know what happened in my world?" Elizabeth asked. "The Time Lords came and closed it. Snap of their fingers, and poof! No more portal. The Doctor's a Time Lord. So why with the no closing?"

Everyone looked at everyone else. They weren't really sure how to answer this.

"Well… he probably had a really, really good reason," Willow said. She paused. "That he didn't tell us about."

"Which falls under the umbrella category of 'kind of a jerk'," Xander supplied. "Which is one of the agreed upon acceptable categories of Doctor-annoyingness."

"You guys, he _did_ have a time machine," Tara said. "Even if he was all… whatever happened to him last year… he could have taken Dawn away and hidden her anywhere in the universe. Or just hidden her in his space ship. I mean, his ship's shielded from time stuff, right? But he didn't do any of that. He just… let Glory take her. He let Buffy die."

The Scoobies all looked at one another, hesitantly. Was this what Buffy would have done, in this situation? Pay the Doctor back for what happened to Dawn?

_("Remember. The ritual starts, and we all die. And I'll kill anyone who comes near Dawn," Buffy had told them.)_

Maybe this was what Buffy would want them to do.

"He tries to pass as human," said Elizabeth, "but he's not. Give him a chance, and he'll kill every single one of you. Without a second thought."

"Who, me?" asked the Doctor, striding out from behind the house. He gave the Scoobies a friendly smile, then looked back at Elizabeth. His smile fell away, and his face turned grave, cold. "What are you doing?"

"Exposing your lies," Elizabeth told him.

The Doctor nodded. "Good to see you're still well on your way to becoming the person we met in 2003."

"You made me the person I'll be in 2003," Elizabeth growled.

"There's nothing I can do about that," said the Doctor. "It has to happen. And if you tell any of these people about it, you might destroy their future as well as your own."

"That's so typical," Elizabeth scoffed. "You've already done something to this timeline, haven't you? You've released some evil monster that's going to bite them in the ass. Just like Iphidrin. And you don't want to admit it."

"I've done nothing to this Sunnydale," said the Doctor. "I'm not planning on doing anything to this Sunnydale. The only one here who's put this Sunnydale into any danger is you."

Willow just stared at the Doctor. He was speaking in a very quiet but determined voice, yet there was an edge to it that she didn't remember him ever using before. When he had spoken to Buffy, he had never sounded like this.

And Elizabeth — well, her every word might be angry, brave, determine, but Willow could see through that mask. Her movements were filled with fear, panic. Whenever the Doctor stepped closer, she instinctively stepped back. Elizabeth only shouted at him, Willow realized, to stop herself from screaming in terror.

Elizabeth threw her arms up into the air. "What are you going to do?" she asked. "Kill me? Oh, wait, you've done that. Destroy my home? Nope, you did that, too. Kill off my friends and family?"

"I barely knew your friends and family," the Doctor protested.

"Yeah, well, that didn't matter, did it?" she asked him. "You still killed them all."

He shook his head. "I don't have time for this," he said. He turned to the others. "Where's Buffy?"

Willow and the others just stared at him for a moment.

"You mean you don't know?" Giles asked.

"Ah, about jumping into the portal," said the Doctor. "Yes, worked that one out. Amazing luck she has, living through something like that. But… guessing from your faces, she's not here. Other timeline, then? Bit of a switcharoo?"

"Doctor," said Willow. "Buffy's dead."


	12. Chapter 12

The Doctor said nothing for a long moment. He just stared out into the distance, at nothing, his jaw falling slightly open, his face turning pale in the night air.

"Told you," said Elizabeth. "You have something to do with that one, too?"

The Doctor snapped his eyes to Willow. "It's a mistake," he said. "It has to be. Jumping into that portal, that was a fixed point in time. If she died, if she really died, she couldn't possibly…" He trailed off. Then he shook his head. "No," he insisted. "It's impossible. It wouldn't make sense. She told me to remember…" His eyes grew distant, and terribly, terribly sad. "The future can be rewritten," he muttered.

"See?" said Elizabeth to the others. "He's got his guilty face on again." She turned back to the Doctor. "It really was your fault, wasn't it?"

The Doctor didn't say anything.

"Wait, no, it wasn't his fault," said Willow. "Buffy died saving us all! That had nothing to do with the Doctor. I think. Besides! He was… in-and-out-of-timey and stuff."

"He's still all guilty looking," said Elizabeth. "Let me guess. Buffy wasn't supposed to die, but you did something that screwed with time. You rewrote the future, made it so that she died. That's what you meant, wasn't it? If it wasn't for you, Buffy would still be alive."

The Doctor stared down at the ground, but didn't answer.

"You monster," Elizabeth accused.

"Well, I think he's okay," chirped in Anya. "And definitely not the kind of person who would want to erase any former vengeance demons who've truly reformed and become good honest American human beings from existence!"

The Doctor snapped his head up. "Wait, wait, vengeance demons?" the Doctor asked. He turned on Anya. "I thought I got rid of you lot."

Anya backed away, trying to edge behind Elizabeth. Xander jumped out, and waved a scolding finger at the Doctor.

"Don't you dare think about touching Anya," Xander warned.

"Angel said if I apologized, I'd be okay," Anya complained. "You're supposed to be not wanting to kill me anymore."

"See?" Elizabeth asked the others. "No pity. No mercy. No humanity."

The Doctor looked around, a bit confused. "Sorry, what—"

"He isn't unkillable," Elizabeth said to Spike. "He isn't undefeatable. You just have to know how to fight him."

Anya and Xander kept yelling at the Doctor, but the Doctor ignored them. His eyes fell on Spike. "You!" he cried. "You're still here!"

"Bloody hell," Spike muttered, tripping over his coat as he stumbled back.

Elizabeth got Spike to his feet. "Sometimes, it's kill or be killed," she said. "Now, go on. Hit him. Prove to the others that he's evil."

Spike hesitated, then his face twisted into a vampiric snarl, and he ran forward. The Doctor, his mind clearly elsewhere, didn't register what was happening until it was too late. Spike gave the Doctor a hard punch in his gut, which sent him flying into a nearby tree trunk. The Doctor collapsed against it, feet falling out from under him, and tried to catch his breath.

Spike waited for the retribution, for some terrible pain in his head or for the Doctor to raise his hand and reduce Spike into a pile of ash like the legends all said, but… nothing happened. Spike looked back at Elizabeth.

"See?" she asked him.

Spike flashed a feral smile, and lunged forwards at the Doctor, his knuckles bared. The Doctor just looked up, a little dazed, as Spike struck him across the face, then began pummeling him across the chest, stomach, jaw, anywhere he could, beating him into the tree trunk. With each blow, Spike's smile of satisfaction widened a little.

"That's the thing about monsters," said Elizabeth, observing them from a distance. "You fear them for so long, but when you realize you can hurt them, when you realize you can kill them, that's when the world becomes yours again. That's when you see that you don't have to run."

"Oh, my God!" came a teenage voice, from across the street.

In a flash, Spike was thrown away from the Doctor, revealing an angry-looking Angel in his place, standing in front of the injured alien. Angel growled at Spike. "Get away from here."

Spike's face morphed back into his usual appearance. "Yeah, whatever, mate," he muttered, and stalked off.

Angel turned to Elizabeth, his eyes fixed on hers, a stern reprimand in his gaze. Neither of them said anything, just looking at one another, as if daring the other to speak first.

Dawn, in the meantime, had run over to the Doctor. She knelt down by him, and shook him, but he seemed pretty unconscious. She looked over at the others. "Don't just stand there!" she said. "Help me!"

They all looked at one another, then rushed over to help Dawn carry the Doctor inside, and lay him out on the couch.

Angel waited until they were all inside the house, before he began speaking.

"You told me not to let you hurt him," said Angel. "I'm not going back on my promise."

"I should never have made you promise that," Elizabeth muttered.

"What did he do this time?" asked Angel. "Or is this just payback for all the other times he's hurt you?"

Elizabeth dragged her shoe along the ground. "It might have been a little paybacky."

Angel nodded. "We aren't going to let him hurt you," he said. "While he's here, we'll make sure you're safe."

Elizabeth gave a dry laugh. "You can't stop him."

"Even so, doing things like this — you know that's not right. You told me that, yourself, in the past."

"He deserves it," said Elizabeth.

"He's also done a lot of good," said Angel. "Remember? I know you've seen him do good things. I was there for some of those."

Elizabeth's eyes blazed. "That doesn't make up for happened on Iphidrin, what happened in Sunnydale, what happened to all the other places he destroyed. That doesn't make up for torturing me, and killing everyone, and then forcing me to watch every single one of my friends die a horrible death, twice!"

"I know he wants to send you back," said Angel, calmly. "But you agree with him on that. You told me, earlier tonight, that—"

Elizabeth snapped her eyes up to Angel, a cold, hard bitterness shining inside of them. "I'm not going back," she hissed through her teeth, "until the Doctor is dead."

"I'm not going to let that happen, either," said Angel, crossing his arms. "I made you a promise in 1905. And I intend to keep it. I didn't let Buffy kill him. I'm not letting you kill him."

"That was before he killed my mother!" Elizabeth shouted at Angel.

Angel's stern expression faltered, just a little bit.

"I know it won't change anything in my timeline, if I kill him now," said Elizabeth. "But what about this one? He already admitted he had something to do with Buffy's death. How long before he kills off the rest of them, too?"

"You still can't kill him," said Angel. "If the Doctor dies, I die. The regenerative energy will turn me to ash."

The bitterness fell away from Elizabeth's face. "What?"

"It's a biological defense mechanism against vampires," said Angel. "When a Time Lord dies, he regenerates — he bursts into a bright, shining light, one that turns all vampires within a fairly large radius to ash. If you kill him, Elizabeth, he'll wake up, with a brand new face and new personality. I won't."

Elizabeth thought this over. "All right," she decided. "I won't kill him. I promise. Just… give me a little time to cool down."

Angel gave a curt nod, and went back into the house. Elizabeth's eyes followed him, their blue irises twinkling in the moonlight. She gave a small smile. No, she wouldn't let Angel die. But she'd still make sure the Doctor was dead — or as good as — by the time all of this was over.


	13. Chapter 13

The moment Angel entered the house, Anya nearly pounced on him. "Angel, you said that it would work," Anya told him. "You said if I was straightforward and repentant, he wouldn't wipe me out of history. But now he knows I'm here, and he knows I used to be a vengeance demon, and he doesn't sound very forgiving."

Angel surveyed the Scoobies, who had huddled around the Doctor. They now seemed quite concerned about him, icing up his bruises and arranging him so he was comfortable on the couch.

"What happened, earlier?" Angel asked.

"Elizabeth came up to us," said Willow, "and she said we had to fight this evil monster, and then the Doctor showed up and it all went sort of crazy, and…" Willow shrugged. "Then you came."

"And you all hated him that much, that you just stood around and watched Spike beat him senseless, without doing anything to help him?" Angel asked. "Elizabeth has a reason to hate him. What's yours?"

"He wants to kill me," Anya put in.

Tara frowned. "I don't think he ever actually said that."

"I thought he did," said Xander. He stepped away from his spot beside the couch. "In fact, why are we even helping him, now? Shouldn't we be throwing him out of the house?"

"He didn't say he wanted to get rid of Anya," said Willow. "He just said he thought he'd gotten rid of the vengeance demons."

"So why didn't you do anything?" Dawn asked them.

Tara, Willow, Anya, Xander, and Giles all looked at one another.

"I don't know," Willow admitted. "I just… didn't think of it."

"Neither did I," said Tara.

"It's rather odd, isn't it?" said Giles. "But the thought never occurred to me, either."

"Well, we were probably just in shock," said Xander. "I mean, Spike could punch the Doctor without the chip activating. That makes the Doctor evil, right?"

"Not necessarily," said Tara. "The Initiative would have programmed the chip to only recognize humans. Good humans are just the same as evil humans. Good demons are the same as evil demons, and good aliens are the same as evil aliens."

"Where's Elizabeth?" asked Willow. "Is she all right?"

"She's fine," said Angel. "She's trying to cool down. She's had some bad experiences with the Doctor." Angel shook his head. "And after the last thing I found out, it's going to be harder than ever to get her not to kill him."

"What last thing?" asked Willow.

"The Doctor," said Angel, "murdered Elizabeth's mother."

Everyone looked at everyone else.

"Mom?" Dawn asked. "But she wasn't murdered. She had that tumor thing."

"In this timeline," said Angel.

"Ah, I see," said Giles, getting up from his spot by the couch, his brow furrowing in thought. "In this world, Joyce died of natural causes, but things are a little different in Elizabeth's world. It could be that, in Elizabeth's world, Joyce was murdered."

"The two timelines are linked," Angel explained. "I don't understand how or why, but I know that every time a big event happens in one, the other struggles to catch up. And Joyce… died very quickly and suddenly, in this timeline."

"You really think the Doctor murdered Joyce?" asked Willow.

"I have to," said Angel. "It makes sense. And Elizabeth is usually right about these sorts of things."

And all the Scoobies could remember the way that Buffy had reacted, when she'd first thought that someone was after her mom. The way she'd said she'd find whoever it was, hunt him down, and kill him.

"I'm starting to feel less bad about the beating up thing, now," said Xander. "I mean… Buffy would have actually killed him for something like that."

"Or worse," Dawn said.

"Maybe Elizabeth was right all along," said Willow. "Buffy would have done exactly the same thing."

Tara nodded, and Giles gave a vague murmur of agreement.

"Great!" said Anya. "So we're going to kill him, and no one will get erased from history!"

Angel gave a small sigh. "We can't kill him. For a large number of reasons."

There was a groan from the couch, and a sign of movement.

"Guys, he's waking up," Dawn called out.

Everyone turned to the Doctor, who snapped his eyes open. He looked around himself, at all the different faces, with hazy brown eyes. "Blimey, that hurt," he complained, as he sat up.

"You okay?" asked Dawn.

"Been better," he said.

Anya opened her mouth to ask about Elizabeth's mother, but Xander, noticing the danger, clapped a hand over Anya's mouth. "Don't upset the scary alien," he whispered to her.

The Doctor peered at the Scoobies around him, his eyes looking lost, confused, clouded. "The other — Buffy. You said…?"

Everyone looked at everyone else.

"I'm terribly sorry," said Giles. "But Buffy is dead."

"Right, yes, got that bit," the Doctor confirmed. "But when you say dead, how dead would that be? Temporal stasis dead? Brain-dead vegetable dead? Intensive care dead? Stuck in another universe dead?"

"We can show you where she's buried," Tara offered.

The Doctor said nothing for a long moment. "Ah." He rested his hands on his knees, and stared at nothing, his face completely blank.

"But, on the plus side," said Anya, "we do have a robot. And we have Elizabeth."

The Doctor jumped to his feet. "Quite right," he said. "Elizabeth is here. Elizabeth shouldn't be here. And that means we haven't a moment to lose. I've been using my TARDIS to stabilize this timeline as a stopgap solution, eliminate the temporal quakes, but it won't work forever. As soon as the temporal quakes reach a certain magnitude, the TARDIS won't be able to hold them back. Entire years or even centuries might be unwritten from the universe." He paused, then looked at Anya. "Sorry, you are?"

"No one you need to delete from time!" Anya insisted.

"She's human," Xander confirmed. "One hundred percent human. And she's very, very nice, and wouldn't harm a fly, and she is extremely sorry about the things she's done in the past."

"Oh, yes, you're the vengeance demon!" the Doctor said.

"Former," Anya supplied.

The Doctor's lips quirked into a vaguely amused smile. "You tried to change something you shouldn't, didn't you?"

"I didn't know that you were close to Buffy when I came here," Anya snapped. "If I'd known she was friends with a Time Lord, I'd never have gone anywhere near her."

The Doctor stuffed his hands into his pockets. "And that's the only reason you wouldn't have wanted to harm her, then, is it?" he asked, his eyes boring into her own.

"Anya's been trying to help us," Willow chimed in, "to do a temporal fold and get Elizabeth back to her world. You know, so we could save the universe. But when we tried it, the timeline was—"

"Time locked," the Doctor said, breaking eye contact with Anya. "I know. I was the one who put the lock there in the first place. And if you break it, the time skips will be the least of your problems, believe me."

"Sorry; what, precisely, is a Time Lock?" Giles asked.

"We'll fill you in, later," Willow told him.

"You're the one who made the mega lock?" Anya asked the Doctor. She seemed impressed. "You know, that's a pretty vengeance demony thing to do. Locking your ex-girlfriend out of time."

The Doctor looked at her, his clever eyes trying to work her out. "Sorry?"

"Well, you and Elizabeth obviously had a thing, right?" asked Anya. "I mean, I don't know what Time Lords call it, but you guys were definitely a couple. Trust me, I've seen enough terrible breakups to know what's really going on. You guys were dating, you broke her heart and destroyed her and stuff. Elizabeth, the innocent victim, decided she hated you, and now she's trying to kill you out of revenge. Most relationships end in a bloodbath."

Xander tried to clap a hand over Anya's mouth again, or just nudge her to get her to stop talking, but Anya pushed him away.

"Do they, now?" asked the Doctor.

"Well, yeah," said Anya. "And I should know. That kind of thing is a vengeance demon buffet." She paused. "When there isn't a Time Lord involved."

"Which is why it's good that Anya's not even remotely a vengeance demon anymore!" Xander put in. "And… did we mention the sorry thing?"

"You think another vengeance demon is going to jump out at Elizabeth, grant her wish, and destroy the world?" Angel asked the Doctor.

The Doctor gave Anya another thoughtful glance. Then he grinned, and look back at Angel. "Nah," he said. "Elizabeth's a trans-temporal, bilocational anomaly. Any temporally aware being worth its salt should know to stay away from her."

Anya blushed.

"Didn't get any of that," said Xander.

"Elizabeth and Buffy are part of two timelines that have been fused together," the Doctor explained. "The moment that Buffy jumped into that portal, she connected this timeline with the other one — along her own time-stream, essentially. Across the past, present, and future, any major event that happens to Buffy in this timeline happens to Elizabeth in the other one, and vice versa." He examined them all. "Don't tell me you haven't noticed."

"How, precisely, do you mean?" asked Giles.

"You mean like the Master?" asked Willow. "Because Elizabeth said she knew the Master. And I thought the Hellmouth didn't exist in her world, so how could she have known him?"

"She did," said the Doctor. "Not a vampire, though, in that timeline. The Master. Hypnotic Time Lord friend of mine — well, I say friend. More like enemy. He was trapped in the Eye of Harmony, and tried to use Elizabeth to get out. Nearly killed her, doing it."

"Oh," said Willow. "I… think I get that."

"Met the Mayor, too," the Doctor said. "Richard Wilkins. Way back in 1851, of course, but, well, still the same bloke you lot faced a few years ago. Wanted to use me to gain immortality so he could turn into a giant snake in 150 years. Seems Wilkins doesn't get any less crazy over time." He paused, and looked over at Dawn. "Although… you didn't happen in the other timeline. Glory, the Key — none of that happened in the other timeline. Seems you're unique, Dawn Summers. What do you think about that?" He gave Dawn a dazzling smile, and a wink.

The Scoobies all swarmed around Dawn, trying to make sure they could leap in and protect her, just in case the Doctor tried anything. Dawn crossed her arms, and tried to give them a defiant glare.

"Doctor," said Angel, trying to draw the Doctor's attention away from Dawn. "Can you get Elizabeth back?"

The Doctor turned on his heel to face Angel, and scratched the back of his neck. "Well, technically speaking, it's impossible," he said. He grinned. "But lucky for you, I'm quite good at impossible."

"She's going to try to kill you," said Angel. "And I don't know if the possibility of my death is going to be enough to stop her."

The Doctor's cheerful expression drained off his face, and he looked solemn and serious. He strode towards the front door. "Then I suppose I'd better hurry," he said, as he left the house.


	14. Chapter 14

An hour later, Anya stood outside the Police Box, trying to get up the courage to knock on the door. She still wasn't sure about this whole apologizing thing. After all, this wasn't just a Time Lord she was talking about — this was the Uncreator. He was supposed to be a real stickler about demons killing people. And as for vengeance demons, specifically…

Well, no vengeance demon had ever faced the Uncreator and lived.

No. Don't worry, Anya. It wasn't like she'd destroyed the world or anything. Well, okay, she almost had when she'd done that thing to Buffy, but all that had gotten reversed, and she'd really liked Buffy by the end. So that was okay, wasn't it? Oh, who was she kidding? He wouldn't care about that. He was the Uncreator. She knew what that meant. She'd heard the stories.

Stories of the Uncreator mercilessly punishing demons just because they'd killed a few innocent people. Or a small town. Or changed a really, really minor thing in the timeline. Like causing a revolution that killed 9 million Russians.

She took a deep breath. No, calm down, Anya. This wasn't the Uncreator, terror of the demon world. This was the Doctor. Buffy's friend. The friend of all humans. That was why he was always so angry when demons killed humans, right? Because he liked them? And Anya was human, now.

She knocked on the door.

A few seconds later, it creaked open, revealing the Doctor, with a pair of black-rimmed glasses perched on his nose. Anya thrust the apple pie she was carrying right in front of his face.

"Hello," she said. "I'm just trying to show you how normal and human I am. Humans bake things. Like apple pie. Would you like some apple pie?"

The Doctor looked from the apple pie to Anya, then back to the pie. "This wouldn't happen to have anything to do with the fact that I've just worked out who you are?" he asked. He raised an eyebrow at her. "Anyanka?"

Anya froze. No. Keep calm, Anya. "But I'm human, now," she said. "And I bake apple pies, and sell people things so they'll give me money." She noticed that his expression hadn't changed. "And… I'm sorry?"

The Doctor examined her, carefully. "Are you really?" he asked.

"Yes!" Anya insisted. "I'm human. See? That means I'm sorry."

"That means you're human," the Doctor corrected. "It doesn't mean you're sorry."

"But I am," Anya insisted. "Really, really, really sorry. And I've got pie!"

The Doctor thought about this a moment, then gave her a bright grin that didn't seem to reach his eyes. "Right, then," he said. He threw open the door. "Why don't you come in? Just working on trying to reconfigure the TARDIS telepathic circuits, make contact with a good friend of mine."

It didn't sound like a warm, friendly invitation. No, the way the Doctor was looking at her made Anya feel like he could see right through her. Like he could see every single thing she'd ever done, and was still trying to work out what to do about it.

Anya hesitated by the door. She really, really, really didn't want to go into the Doctor's ship. But… no, she had to do this. She had to convince him, now, before he ran into her in the past, and uncreated her then. Or maybe, when she stepped inside his ship, he'd just go ahead and uncreate her anyways.

No. Pie. She had pie. He wouldn't uncreate someone with pie, would he?

Anya stepped into the TARDIS.

As she entered the ship, the Doctor waited, expectantly, staring at her. Was she supposed to be saying something? Making some comment about his bigger-on-the-inside time travel vehicle? Oh, no. Maybe if she didn't say something, she wouldn't be human enough. And she knew she'd better say something incredibly flattering, something that would really get her on his good side.

"It looks very expensive," she tried.

(It didn't.)

The Doctor gave a sidelong grin at this. "Not the reaction I was expecting," he told her. "But I'll take it as a compliment. Go ahead, sit yourself down. I'm just going to connect these circuits."

Anya wasn't really sure what to do. So she sat on the jumpseat, just like he'd told her to, and watched as he did a confusing and bizarre dance around the central console. She felt like she needed to say something. But what? She was never good at figuring out the right things to say to sound human. No, wait, she was human now. So if she just said the first thing that came to her mind, that would sound human!

"Did you really kill Elizabeth's mother?" Anya asked the Doctor.

The Doctor paused in his work, for just a second, then acted as if he hadn't heard her, continuing to work by the console. He didn't even look up at her.

Hang on. That wasn't a good thing to talk about with someone who you were trying to get on your good side, was it?

"Not that I think you did," Anya added, quickly. She kicked her feet against the ground. "It's just… Angel says you did."

"Angel," said the Doctor, flipping a switch on the console, and checking a reading on the monitor, "believes anything that Elizabeth tells him."

"Then why doesn't Angel hate you the same way Elizabeth does?" asked Anya.

"I made Angel better," said the Doctor. "Elizabeth was the one I destroyed."

"By killing her mother," said Anya.

"Just because someone says something doesn't make it true," the Doctor told her.

"Okay, well, if you didn't kill Elizabeth's mother, then who did?" asked Anya.

The Doctor raised his eyes up to meet Anya's, just for a second. "Elizabeth knows," he said. Then he turned back to the central console.

Anya rolled her eyes. "Well, of course you'd blame the _woman_ ," she said. "That's just so typical. It can't be your fault. Oh, no. Elizabeth's got to be the murderer, because it's always the woman's fault." She huffed. "Typical man. I'm glad people like Elizabeth still exist to take revenge on men like you."

The Doctor stopped his work on the central console, and snapped his head up to look at her, scrutinizing her, judging her. Every bit of lightness had drained from his face. "Ah. Yes. That's what I thought."

Anya felt her heart pounding. She clutched the apple pie more tightly, as she realized she'd just said exactly the wrong thing.

The Doctor moved away from the central console and started walking over to her, hands in his pockets. "Anyanka," he said. "The avenger of wronged women. Born in Sjornjost, Sweden, 860. You created chaos and destruction then, and you just kept on going, didn't you? One thousand years of death and slaughter and time manipulation on a scale I've rarely seen. Oh, yes, I know what you did. I know everything you did. Every timeline you've changed. Every human you've slaughtered. Every town you've razed to the ground. Every revolution you've sparked." His eyes blazed. "9 million people dying. And yourself? Watching, in luxury. No pity. No mercy. Not even a hint of regret for what you'd done."

"But… I'm not a demon anymore!" Anya protested. She raised up the pie. "See? Pie!"

"You want to know the thing about vengeance demons?" the Doctor asked, stopping in front of Anya, his eyes staring straight down into her soul, his voice tinged with a hint of lightness that made his every word sound more cold and ominous than Anya had thought possible. "They aren't fundamental to the timeline. Ever. I can undo everything they've ever done, erase every altered timeline and bring back every murdered person, by simply going back and getting rid of them before they ever met D'Hoffryn. Stopping that very first act of revenge. And normally, I couldn't do that. Normally, if I were to meet someone in 2001, I wouldn't be able to erase their entire existence before I ever met them, because that would create a paradox. But with vengeance demons, I can. And I do. All the time." He gave her a cold, steady glare. "So. Tell me, Anya Christina Emanuella Jenkins. Why shouldn't I give back all those lives you've stolen? Why shouldn't I let history unfold the way it should? What makes your single life more important than the millions of others you've wiped out over this past millennia?"

"I… I'm human!" Anya said, trying to make her voice sound less like a squeak.

"Yes, you keep insisting on that," said the Doctor. "As if it means something. As if that alone would be enough to redeem you. But I've met many different kinds of humans. I've met humans who have tried to destroy the Earth. I've met humans who have slaughtered people for fun. I've met humans who have done more damage than any demon you'd care to name. You were human, when you began taking revenge. So that doesn't really say anything, does it? If you're just the same Anyanka, then it doesn't really matter if my bioscan says you're human or demon. Because if all you're planning to contribute to this world is blood and death and hatred, I won't allow that."

Anya opened and closed her mouth, a few times, trying to think of something she could say, but coming up with nothing.

"I don't do second chances, Anya," said the Doctor. "And you've had a chance. You weren't born a demon. You chose it. As far as I'm concerned, that contract with D'Hoffryn was your first and only warning. So if you have a reason I shouldn't go back and reverse what you've done, I'd like to hear it."

"I… I…" Anya tried to melt into the chair, but she couldn't. "I'll have sex with you!"

The Doctor didn't look impressed. "Will you?" he asked, emotionlessly.

"Yes!" Anya said. "If you don't uncreate me, I'll have sex with you. You're a man, and men like sex, and..." She trailed off, as it became apparent that this wasn't working at all.

The Doctor went back to the central console, shaking his head. "Same Anyanka," he said, as he began to work again, flipping switches, pulling wires and reconnecting them.

Anya sagged. The apple pie dropped off her lap, and toppled onto the grating, crust down. She was trying not to cry.

"I couldn't have sex with you anyways," Anya confessed. "I have…" The tears flooded her eyes, as she thought about all the things she was giving up, all the things that would never happen in her life. "…a fiancé."

The Doctor froze, his hand just above a switch. He looked up at her, and took off his glasses. "You're… getting married."

Anya nodded. She got the engagement ring box out of her pocket. "He won't let me say," she said, through sobs. "See? He gave me this beautiful, expensive ring, and I can't even wear it. And now… I never will."

The Doctor said nothing for a few seconds. Anya looked up, through her tears, and found that he had moved beside her, studying her.

"Who?" he asked, in a far softer voice than Anya had ever heard him use. He took the ring box from her, gently, to examine it.

"Xander," said Anya, as he examined the engagement ring inside. "Xander Harris."

The Doctor raised an eyebrow at her. "Xander Harris? The man you came to Sunnydale to curse?"

"Yes."

The Doctor stood there a few seconds, the ring case open in his hand, the light from the TARDIS glowing across its tiny jewels. Then, he snapped the case shut, and handed it back to her.

"I hope you two have a long, happy future," he said.

Anya took the case from him, and the Doctor went back to running around the central console. She could barely breathe, as she wiped the tears out of her eyes. And it took her a few seconds to realize what this meant.

What the Doctor meant.

(What had she done to convince him?)

The Doctor kicked the TARDIS console, irritated. "Interference!" he said. "Psychic interference on a massive scale. I can't unlock the timeline unless I get the Key. And I can't get the Key without these telepathic circuits!" He kicked the console again, then hopped backwards, on one foot. "Ow."

"Key?" asked Anya.

The Doctor looked over at her. "Forget I said that."

Okay, that sounded very not good for Dawn.

"Thing is, psychic interference on this scale would mean a massive…" the Doctor trailed off, staring at the TARDIS console. "Elizabeth."

"Huh?" asked Anya.

The Doctor turned, and stormed towards the TARDIS doors. "Oh, she's not getting away with this," he said. "Not again. I'm not letting it happen in this timeline. I'm not letting her do it!"


	15. Chapter 15

The door to the Summers Residence opened, and Anya stepped inside. She seemed quite happy. She ran over and hugged Xander. Then she kissed him, passionately.

Everyone stared at Anya, confused. Elizabeth, who was back from her small outing, looked suspicious.

"I did it!" Anya announced. "The Doctor isn't going to kill me!"

"Why?" asked Elizabeth. "The Doctor never does anything without a reason. What does he want you for?"

"I don't know," said Anya. She shrugged, then beamed, and continued on in her previous excited tone. "But the point is, I'm not getting erased from history! I faced the Uncreator, and I came out of it alive!" She turned on Angel. "No thanks to you. That whole apologizing thing? That didn't work at all!"

"What made him not want to kill you?" asked Xander.

"I have no idea!" said Anya. "It wasn't apologizing, it wasn't the pie, it wasn't… the other thing I said. I mean, I didn't do or say anything important while I was there. He just sort of… decided to let me live. Maybe he was in a good mood today." She paused. "Oh, and I think he wants to kill Dawn."

"What?" Willow, Tara, Dawn, Angel, and Xander asked, all at once.

"Well, he kept talking about a Key," said Anya, "and then when I asked him about it, he said to forget it, and then he started saying he needed to stop Elizabeth…"

Elizabeth grabbed her bag of patrolling gear, and ran out the door, her eyes blazing.

"Should we stop her?" asked Xander. "Or… help her? Or… wait. I'm confused."

"The sun's about to rise," said Angel. "That puts me out of action."

"The rest of us had better find Elizabeth and the Doctor," Willow suggested. "Just to make sure they don't kill each other."

"This may sound like a stupid question," said Xander, "but… why are we saving the Doctor, if he's trying to kill Dawn?"

"Well, Buffy would want us to protect the…" Willow trailed off. Because Buffy would want them to protect her sister, wouldn't she? And… Elizabeth was… okay, she wasn't Buffy, Willow knew that, but she… well, she _was_ Buffy. So…. Willow shook her head. "The Doctor has a soul," she amended. "And we don't kill creatures that have a soul."

"Elizabeth may be right to hate him," said Angel, "but she isn't right to kill him. She knows it. If she ever actually goes through with it, she'll never be able to forgive herself."

"And Dawn?" asked Xander.

"I'll remain here," said Giles. "Ensure that Dawn is safe."

"Why can't I go?" Dawn complained. Then, realizing it was sort of a stupid question, seeing as the others were heading out to track down someone who wanted to kill her, she bit her tongue, and gave a small pout.

"I should probably stay here, too," said Tara. "Just in case the Doctor tries anything."

Xander nodded, slowly. Then looked around the room, at all the Scoobies. "I know I'm probably not supposed to say this," he said, "but everyone here does realize that if the Doctor decides he really wants to kill Dawn, there'll be absolutely nothing any of us will be able to do to stop him?"

Everyone looked at one another. Because they were afraid to admit that Xander was right.


	16. Chapter 16

They didn't find Elizabeth.

Or the Doctor.

They looked all throughout the day, until they decided they were way, way, way too tired, and crashed in Dawn's living room. By the time that they woke up, night had fallen, and Angel was trying to shake them awake.

"We've got a serious problem," he said.

Everyone sat up, abruptly.

"How serious is serious?" asked Xander. "Are we talking the entire town of Sunnydale is going to die serious? The world is going to be destroyed serious? The Hellmouth has just opened serious?"

"I can find the Doctor," said Angel.

"Oh," said Xander, collapsing back into the armchair. "We're talking 'we just found someone we were looking for' serious."

"I know this might sound stupid," said Willow, "but don't we want to find the Doctor?"

" _We_ do," said Angel.

Dawn stretched, and gave a small yawn. "You think Elizabeth's found him?" she asked.

"I think Elizabeth found the Doctor a long time ago," said Angel. "And from the smell, I'd say she's pretty much done with him."

"Smell?" asked Xander. "You don't mean they…?" He made a face. "Ew."

"I meant she tried to kill him," said Angel. "Blood, Xander. That's what I can smell. Time Lord blood."

"And if you can smell it…" Giles said, adjusting his glasses.

"Then every other vampire in Sunnydale can smell it, too," Angel agreed. "And that's one problem we really, really don't need on top of everything else."

"Vampires killing the Doctor?" asked Tara.

"Vampires that have drunk Time Lord blood," Angel corrected.

Willow frowned, trying to jog her sleep-addled brain. "Oh, yeah," she said. "Vampires all go sort of crazy around the Doctor, don't they? I never really got why."

"I thought his blood turned vampires human," said Dawn.

"Only when he's injected himself with the Vamp-Away cure," said Angel. "If that's worn off… then we've got a serious problem on our hands."

Everyone gave him a blank look. Angel looked around the room, at all the confused faces.

"You mean you never heard the legends about Time Lord blood?" asked Angel. "What it can do? The reason that vampires are willing to risk their lives and maybe more for just a taste of it?"

Everyone shook their heads.

"Then let's hope you never find out," he told them, as he ran to the door.

* * *

When they found the Doctor, Dawn didn't think she knew enough swear words to describe the scene they discovered.

They had passed a number of vampires on the way. At first, Dawn had been frightened, but it soon became apparent that the vampires weren't interested in them. The vampires had their noses in the air, their eyes filled with greed and hunger. They had one goal in mind, and that was the Doctor.

Dawn squeezed Willow's hand a little tighter.

They arrived, eventually, at the burnt out remains of Buffy's high school. Willow paused, as she approached. "Wait a minute," she said. "Vampires… and a woman… and…" She trailed off.

"What?" asked Dawn.

Willow gave Dawn a reassuring smile. "Nothing," she said. "It's not important."

But it was, and Dawn knew it. And it always bugged Dawn when Willow and Tara and Xander and Anya and people didn't fill her in about important stuff she should know.

The others were all talking. Mainly about why the Doctor would be in the burnt-out high school (and if he'd been here all day, no wonder they hadn't found him, because they'd never have thought to look here) and whether he'd been trying to open the Hellmouth or was Elizabeth trying to open the Hellmouth, or… what?

None of that could prepare Dawn for what she found in the burnt-out library.

Two vampires were feeding as they entered, their jaws dripping with blood. Then, their eyes went wide, and they screamed, as they turned to dust. That was when Dawn noticed the tied-up figure on the ground, the one the vampires had been feeding on.

And Dawn ran out of swear words.

"Is that…?" Giles asked.

It was. The Doctor, on the ground, on his side, beside the Hellmouth crack, feet bound with thick rope, and his hands bound in front of him. A long length of rope extended out of the knot that bound his hands, a length of rope that looped around a partially toppled beam of the ceiling. It looked as if the Doctor had originally been hanging from the roof, before some vampire had come in and tried to drag him away, pulling the beam down along with him. His eyes were shut, and his skin was drenched with a reddish-orangey blood.

"Before anyone says anything," said Xander. "This is definitely still something that Buffy would have done." But Dawn wasn't sure if Xander was trying to convince himself, or everyone else.

Tara ran over, and felt for a pulse. "He's still alive," she called out.

Willow, Dawn, and the others ran over, untying him and applying pressure to the wounds, trying to make the bleeding stop.

Willow paused, as she examined the bite marks. Her eyes went wide, and she just kept staring. Most of the others didn't notice, simply continued to try to get the Doctor back to normal. But Tara caught the lack of motion, and hesitated.

"Willow?" Tara asked. "What's wrong?"

"I've seen this before," Willow breathed.

Everyone looked over at her.

"Seen what before?" asked Anya.

Willow put her hand up to her hair, and felt the strands beneath her fingers. "It's long," she said. "Longer."

"Will, you sure you're all right?" asked Xander.

"What's 38,000?" asked Willow. She looked around at them. "That number's important. What does it mean?"

"Isn't that the population estimate of Sunnydale?" asked Angel.

"That sounds about right," Anya confirmed.

Willow blinked, then nodded, slowly. She looked back at the Doctor. "What am I going to do to you?" she asked, in a whisper.

"Willow?" Tara asked.

Willow shook her head. "Sorry," she said. "It's just… nothing. I'll tell you later. Right now, we should just figure out how to get him somewhere safe."

Angel turned to Giles. "You better go get your car," said Angel. "He's not in any position to walk."

Giles nodded, and rushed out of the burnt-out library.

"Well," said Anya. "From the number of bite marks, I'd say nearly every vampire in Sunnydale had a go at him."

"So all those vampires now have Time Lord blood?" asked Dawn.

"From what we saw when we first came in," said Angel, "I'd say Elizabeth worked out how much Vamp-Away was too much, dosed him with it, and set a trap. The moment a vampire tries to drink his blood, he'll turn to ash."

"She set a trap for vampires using her ex-boyfriend as bait?" asked Dawn. "That's horrible!"

"You gotta admit, it does get rid of a huge number of vampires all at once," Xander pointed out. "I mean, it's what Buffy would do."

"Nearly kill her ex-boyfriend?" Dawn asked.

Angel shrugged. "She sent me to Hell for a hundred years so she could save the world," he pointed out. "How's this any different?"

Dawn had to admit that was a good point. Really, this was the same thing, wasn't it?

"And besides, wanting to kill your ex-boyfriend isn't a crime," said Anya. "I've met tons of women like that. At least Elizabeth is nice enough to use her vengeance to make the world a better place."

"Yeah — wait, what? No, just…" Angel sighed. "Look, all I'm saying is, you guys can't blame Elizabeth. She's just acting exactly the same way that Buffy would act."

"Yeah," said Dawn. "I guess."

Willow stared at them, horror in her eyes. "What are you guys talking about?"

"If the positions were reversed, this is exactly what Buffy would do," Angel explained. "Saving the town from vampires and helping innocent humans."

"Yep, this has Buffy written all over it," Xander agreed.

Willow gaped at them. "Are you guys insane? Buffy would never have done this!" she cried. She pointed at the Doctor. "This is _not_ okay! Under any circumstances! I don't care if it's Elizabeth doing it, or some random stranger, or whoever. He was tied up, and interrogated — by the Hellmouth — and then nearly killed. You don't do that to people!"

"He's not exactly people, Will," said Xander. "He's… you know. Alien."

"I don't care!" said Willow. "Buffy would never, _ever_ have done this! Not in a million years! If she were around, right now…" She trailed off, as she looked over at the doorway, where three more vampires had appeared. "Uh, oh."

The Scoobies all got up, and prepared themselves for the vampire fight of their lives. These vampires looked determined to feed, but the Scoobies were determined to stop them. And they all knew how determined vampires always were to drink the Doctor's blood.

Dawn was about to go and help the others, but she caught sight of movement from the Doctor, and looked down to find his eyes open, staring at the area around him. Then those dark, intense eyes fixed on her, as if looking deep into her soul.

Dawn froze.

The Doctor tried to get up, reaching a hand towards Dawn, but it was clear that he'd lost too much blood, and collapsed back onto the ground. Dawn looked at his eyes, those sad, terribly lonely eyes.

Was this the same guy everyone kept saying was going to kill her?

But Dawn kept remembering, when Buffy was still alive, the way she'd spoken about the Doctor. She'd said he was sunshine and starlight and that wonderful feeling you got when you were so happy to be alive. And Dawn kept remembering those times when she had been in trouble, and the Doctor had rushed to defend her. The way he'd sat her down, with those friendly, trusting eyes, and told her that he wasn't real, either, that he was from a planet that never existed, in a time that had been folded out of the timeline, in a galaxy that was now just empty space.

Donna had said it best. The Doctor was terrifying. And he was amazing.

Just like Buffy.

Dawn knelt down by him, and took his hand in her own. He squeezed it, tightly. She could see his lips moving, see him saying something, but she couldn't catch what it was. He just kept saying it, over and over again. It took her a little while to realize that it was her sister's name.

He thought she was her sister.

"No, Doctor, it's me," said Dawn. "Dawn."

The Doctor nodded. "I know," he whispered. "Buffy's dead."

Oh. Oh. So that's what he'd been saying. Over and over and over again. 'Buffy's dead.' As if trying to convince himself it was true. Trying to process what the words actually meant.

"I know," said Dawn. "I miss her, too."

"No," said the Doctor, clutching her hand tighter. "I checked. She's dead. Really dead." He stared straight ahead at the ceiling. "Why?" he mouthed.

"She died saving my life," said Dawn.

"It doesn't make sense," said the Doctor, squeezing his eyes shut.

Dawn hesitated. "What… doesn't make sense?" she asked. Because she wasn't sure if it was Buffy's death that didn't make sense to him, or the fact that Buffy would sacrifice herself to save Dawn.

(Because Dawn knew that she had cried her eyes out for nights on end, trying to make sense of it herself, trying to understand why Buffy — a real person, a superhero, the one that everyone always depended on — would have sacrificed herself for Dawn. For someone not real. Dawn couldn't make sense of it, either.)

The Doctor's eyes popped open, and he stared at her. Really stared at her. In that way he'd done the first time he saw her, as if he couldn't quite believe what she was, as if the entire world were crashing down on his head, and he couldn't do anything to stop it.

"Dawn Summers," he said. "The most dangerous girl in the universe."

Dawn felt herself shiver as he said those words. She wasn't really sure what to say when he told her things like that. And he said that to her a lot. Buffy had always said it was just because he wanted to make sure she knew her own responsibility. But Dawn was pretty sure he'd said that to himself, the very first time he'd seen her.

She didn't want to be the most dangerous girl in the universe.

A terribly sad expression haunted the Doctor's face, one that was filled with such pain and loss and self-hatred that Dawn felt a little uneasy. In a voice barely above a whisper, the Doctor told her:

"I'm sorry. I am so, so sorry."

And the way he said it was actually sort of creepy. Like… he was going to have to do something he regretted. But that couldn't be right. He wouldn't really want to kill her, would he?

(He wanted to kill her the first time he saw her.)

Dawn tried to pull away from him, but he held her hand a little tighter — impossibly strong — and wouldn't let her go. Dawn looked at the people around her, then back down at the Doctor. Buffy would have trusted him. Buffy would have trusted him with anything. Everything.

But should Dawn?

Elizabeth didn't trust him one inch. And Elizabeth was so much like Buffy. Yes, Dawn could sort of tell that she traveled with the Doctor — she had that way of talking people around that all the Doctor's companions picked up. And she did gadgets instead of fighting. But she still looked like Buffy. She still felt like Buffy.

Elizabeth had to still be Buffy.

The vampires dusted in the night air, and the Doctor's eyes darted over to them, acknowledging them. "Don't understand," he said.

Dawn was a little too frightened to ask him what he didn't understand. She thought she knew. And she thought she knew what he was planning to do to remedy the situation.

The Doctor squeezed Dawn's hand even tighter. His eyes met hers. "When she returns," he whispered, "run."

"Huh?" asked Dawn.

But the Doctor had already drifted back into unconsciousness.

Dawn tried to get her hand away, but even unconscious, the Doctor kept holding on with an iron grip. She called out to the others for help. They all ran over, and, with some effort, managed to get Dawn away from the Doctor.

When who returns? Because obviously, he couldn't be talking about Elizabeth. Elizabeth was Buffy, and Buffy would never hurt her. Elizabeth had to be Buffy. Dawn wasn't about to run away from Elizabeth. She wasn't about to run away from someone who'd sacrificed herself to save a non-real sister.

Outside, they could hear a car approaching. Giles' car. Dawn watched, as the other Scoobies picked the Doctor up and dragged him back towards the car. They were all still arguing, even as they managed to arrange the limp, bloody body into the back seat.

"Look, Will," said Xander. "I promise. When Elizabeth explains it all, you'll see. Elizabeth's just doing exactly what Buffy would do, in this situation."

"Well, quite," said Giles, as he got into the driver's seat. "I'm certain there's a terribly logical, reasonable explanation for this."

Dawn decided they had to be right.


	17. Chapter 17

The Doctor was still on the couch, unconscious, when Elizabeth walked through the door. The Scoobies all stood in front of him, in the living room, watching her as she entered. Elizabeth examined all the angry faces surrounding her.

"Something wrong?" she asked.

The Scoobies moved aside, to reveal the Doctor.

Elizabeth looked him over. Her expression didn't change from the steady, determined countenance she'd worn before. Then she turned to Angel. "I wasn't actually going to kill him," she said.

"Weren't you?" asked Angel.

"No," Elizabeth insisted. "He's fine. Not even that badly injured — for him, at least. I've seen him way worse." She gave a half-shrug. "Besides. You know I won't kill him. For one, I don't want to kill you, and for two, I need him to fix the time jumps." Her eyes skimmed across the room, and for the first time, her lips quirked down into a frown. "Wait. Where's Dawn?"

"Why do you want to know?" Willow asked.

Elizabeth's eyes widened, and she started pushing through the Scoobies, looking around her, frantically. "Dawn? Dawn!"

Dawn popped her head out of the kitchen, and Elizabeth breathed a sigh of relief.

"Thank God," said Elizabeth. She ran over, and put her hands on Dawn's shoulders. "Dawn. No matter what happens, stay away from the Doctor. Don't even let him speak to you. The Doctor doesn't have to touch you to kill you. All he has to do is start talking, and by the end, you'll want to kill yourself for him. You got that?"

Willow mouthed the words, "kill yourself for him," still looking slightly dazed.

"Um, is this little exchange just for exclusive members, or can anyone join in?" asked Xander.

Elizabeth spun around. "The Doctor wants to kill Dawn," she explained. "That's why I had to get him out of the way. I found the extra Vamp-Away in his pockets, and used it to make sure he didn't get… you know. Vampirized." She faltered. "Okay, and because I don't like him and it seemed like a really great way to get rid of a huge number of vampires all at once. So sue me."

"Why does the Doctor want to kill Dawn?" asked Xander.

"Why do you think?" said Elizabeth. "The Doctor's got a Lock. Dawn's the Key. To open the Lock, he has to kill Dawn. And before you say that he wouldn't because Dawn's a living person and whatever, let me tell you. The Doctor's done a lot worse to preserve his precious 'Web of Time'." Under her breath, she muttered, "Iphidrin."

"I told you!" said Anya.

Giles fiddled with his glasses. "Yes, well, it's not unheard of," he conceded. "Buffy might have mentioned to me that the Doctor was trying to kill Dawn early last year, and that she stopped him."

"I think he did try," said Dawn. "Because I'm, like, super dangerous and can make the universe fall apart. But that whole thing that happened was kind of… weird. Buffy knocked him out, and I guess she beat him up or something, because after that, he stopped trying to kill me."

"So… that means Buffy was the only thing stopping him from killing Dawn," Tara said.

"And now that Buffy's not around anymore…" Xander cringed.

Everyone else digested this, looking between Elizabeth and the Doctor. Digesting what it told them — that this was exactly what Buffy would have done. That Elizabeth really was right. Anya and Xander began edging away from the couch. Tara caught Willow's hand, trying to lead her away, too, but Willow didn't notice. She was just looking at Elizabeth, a dark expression on her face.

"What else did you say to him?" Willow asked Elizabeth, in a voice so quiet, it was barely above a whisper. It was a voice that was far more cold, far more demanding than any Willow had used before when speaking to Elizabeth.

"Huh?" asked Elizabeth.

"I have a friend," said Willow, "who wanted me to give you an earful for this. So I'm giving you an earful. Because you interrogated him for eight hours. You didn't just talk about Dawn for eight hours! What else did you talk about? What did you try to convince him of?"

Elizabeth's eyes blazed. "What do you think?" she asked. She pointed at the Doctor. "He won't admit the truth! What he's doing to me! To all those other planets and people out there in the universe! What really happened in 2003! That he murdered my mother!"

"Right," said Xander, shifting uneasily. "And it took you eight hours and torture to convince him that he did those things?"

"Torture? I didn't even touch him!" Elizabeth protested. "I only tied him up so he wouldn't hurt me. And we talked."

"In a blown up building, by the Hellmouth," said Willow. "You talked. For eight hours."

"I barely got in a word!" Elizabeth cried. "He did most of the talking."

"Look, Elizabeth, we're not blaming you," said Xander. "We just want to know what's going on. I mean, Anya always says you can convince anyone of anything if you talk long enough, and… eight hours? Kinda long."

"I picked up that skill from him," Elizabeth spat. "You haven't seen the way he talks to people. I'm nothing next to him. Even the First Evil is nothing compared to this guy! When he's talking — really talking — he can make anyone do anything. I should know! He's done it to me!"

"Elizabeth," said Willow, very softly, looking into Elizabeth's furious eyes, trying to understand. "I trusted you."

The ferocity of Elizabeth's expression melted, and she seemed suddenly — tired. Just so very, very tired. "Look," she said. "I know this looks bad. It always does, when the monsters look human. But… he's not human, Will. I know. Everything you're thinking now, about how the Doctor's a good guy and he doesn't deserve it and no one should ever harm him — I've thought that, too. I'd have given my life for him a few years ago. I almost did — more times than you can count."

She looked over at him. "I loved him so much, once," Elizabeth continued. "I thought he was the sweetest, kindest, most wonderful person in the universe. Brave, noble, heroic, willing to throw himself into danger in order to save innocent lives, always wandering around, saving countless worlds. Everything he did was right, everything he did was justified. But then, one day, I just… noticed. What he was doing to me. How he was…" she breathed, a little faster, "…hurting me."

She shuddered, as she turned back to Willow. "Will, he tore me apart from the inside out," Elizabeth told her. "Like I was nothing. His tool, his puppet. His Little Slayer." She clenched her hands into fists by her sides. "I thought… if I left, it would stop. But it never stops. Even now. The Doctor won't ever let it stop."

Willow glanced over at the unconscious Doctor, some of the hardness leaving her face. "Let what stop?" she asked.

"I can't describe it," said Elizabeth. "It started… that first time we kissed. Just after the CPR thing. And ever since then… it's like he's put a monster inside of me, and it's eating me alive. I told him to stop. I asked him so many times. He never admits it. He keeps saying he didn't do anything. But he did! I know he did!"

"He's admitted it to Buffy, since then," said Angel. "He said he was sorry."

"Then why won't he stop it?" asked Elizabeth. "Why's he still doing it? Why does he keep making it worse?" She took a shaky breath. "I just need it to stop. Please. It's killing me."

"Elizabeth, we'll do anything in our power to help you," said Giles. He glanced over at the unconscious Doctor. "But murdering an ensouled creature is not the right way to go about it." He leaned against the desk, and turned back to Elizabeth. "Please, explain to us. What, precisely, is happening to you?"

"I'm fighting," said Elizabeth. "Every single second of every single day. None of you can see it, but I'm single-handedly fighting a never-ending war against the forces of darkness. All the time. Because I know if I don't fight the Doctor, I'll have to give in. And I can't give in. If I let myself go, even for a second… you don't want to know what would happen. I'm tired, Giles. I'm just so tired." Tears sprung into the bottoms of her eyes, like tiny little jewels. "If you knew, if you had any idea what the Doctor wants me to do, you'd help me destroy him. Please. I just want to be myself again. Make the world a better place. That's all I ever wanted."

"And what do you believe the Doctor wants you to do?" asked Giles.

Elizabeth's eyes filled with terror at the very idea. "You don't want to know," she whispered. She shook her head. "Please. I don't want anyone to die! Not even him. But I'm desperate. He's tearing me apart, and I need him to stop."

"Have you tried just asking him?" asked Dawn. "That usually works."

"What do you think I've been doing for the last eight hours?" Elizabeth cried. "He's in denial. He doesn't believe it really happened. I'm dying from the inside out, and he won't help me! I have to kill him, it's the only thing left!"

Giles sighed. "I'm sorry," he said. "We'd like to help, but we can't kill a creature with a soul. It's immoral."

"He may have a soul, but it's an alien soul," said Elizabeth. "Trust me, Giles, I know what I'm talking about. The Doctor will always do what he thinks is right, but his ideas of right and wrong don't match up with ours. They can be… terrifying. Horrifying."

"He fought in the Time War," Dawn protested. "Bad stuff happens in wars. It's not like he had a choice."

"He wasn't in a war when I knew him!" said Elizabeth. "I don't know or care what he did in his war-whatever. I'm talking about what he when I travelled with him. What I saw him do. He doesn't abide by our moral code, Dawn. This one place we visited — Iphidrin — I saw him…" She shuddered. "I couldn't stop him. He started, and he wouldn't stop. And they all died. They died screaming at him for mercy and he just…." She took a few shaky breaths, and tried to get herself back under control. "I've spent so long trying to come to terms with what I saw. What he made me do. His Little Slayer. He made me do so many terrible things, so many horrible, evil things, and I thought they were right. I thought if the Doctor wanted me to do them, I had to be doing the right thing! But… they were wrong. Evil. And I remember what I did. I always remember." She trembled at the memory. "And even when I think maybe I should just forgive the Doctor, move on with my life, I think about what's going to happen in 2003…" She squeezed her eyes shut. "I can't stand by and watch it happen, again. I can't let him kill them all. 38,000 people."

"38,000," Willow repeated, in an emotionless voice.

Elizabeth looked into Willow's eyes. "Listen. Will. If this timeline is linked to my own, if everything I've heard is true, then I know what's coming for you in 2003. I can't let it happen. If I have to die to stop it, then kill me! If he has to die, then kill him! But I can't just wait around and do nothing."

"Hang on," said Xander. "What happened in 2003?"

"In 2003, everyone died," Elizabeth told them. She pointed at the Doctor. "And he killed them. He sacrificed everyone in Sunnydale to preserve his own life. I know. I was there."

Willow shuffled from foot to foot.

Elizabeth noticed Willow's unease. She turned to Angel. "Angel," she said. "In 1905, when I met you, I'd just come back from that. You saw me. You saw the Doctor. Tell them if I'm making it up."

Angel shook his head. "She's not," he said. "The Doctor practically confessed it."

Elizabeth turned back to Willow. "In his mind, he's a hero," she said. "He has to be, because if he ever faced up to the truth, it would destroy him completely. He lies to himself. Over and over again. I've seen him do it before."

"He also blames himself for a lot of things that aren't his fault," said Willow.

Elizabeth nodded. "I know," she said. "Because it's easier to blame himself for the crimes of others than it is to blame himself for his own crimes. It's all an elaborate façade, one he's convinced himself is real. All I've been doing is trying to make him see the truth. If I don't do it, Will, he's going to pick you off, one by one. He's taken away everything I ever had in the other timeline. And now he's moving on to this one. Starting with my family."

"But… Joyce is already dead in this timeline," said Tara.

"Dawn isn't," said Elizabeth, looking over to Dawn.

"You know," said Xander, "the first person the Doctor wanted, when we found him earlier tonight, was Dawn. And he might have been too weak to do anything then, but he was pretty grabby."

"He wouldn't let her go, remember?" asked Tara. "Even when he was unconscious."

Dawn's eyes went wide. "He told me I was the most dangerous girl in the universe," she said. "And then he said he was so, so sorry. That's what he always tells people right before he kills them, isn't it?"

Elizabeth turned back to Willow, who still looked dubious. "Wills, please," she said. "You have to believe me. I'm not just saying this. I know what I'm talking about. He did it on Iphidrin, and he'll do it here."

Willow hesitated. She looked back at the unconscious Doctor. "Buffy believed in him," she insisted.

Elizabeth let go of Dawn, and walked over to the Doctor. Angel stepped in between Elizabeth and the Doctor, placing his hands on her shoulders.

"I don't think that's a good idea," said Angel.

"I'm not going to hurt him," said Elizabeth. "But I need to prove it. I need to prove to you guys that he really is what I keep saying he is."

Angel faltered.

"Please, Angel," said Elizabeth. "I won't even touch him. I promise."

Angel looked into Elizabeth's eyes, then gave a small sigh, and moved out of the way.


	18. Chapter 18

Elizabeth bent down by the Doctor, looking him over with a cold detachment.

"You won't be able to rouse him," said Giles. "We've all tried. He appears to be in some sort of trance."

"Healing coma," Elizabeth corrected. "I know how to wake him up out of one of those." She bent down by his ear, and whispered something.

The Doctor sat up, suddenly, his eyes open, scanning the room, as if looking for danger. Then his eyes fell on Elizabeth. He slumped backwards on the couch.

"Should have known," he said.

Elizabeth stood up, and folded her arms. "Well?"

"Well, what?" asked the Doctor.

"Are you going to do it?" asked Elizabeth. "Are you going to admit it?"

The Doctor gave a weary sigh. "We're back to that again, are we?" he asked. "You couldn't win after eight hours. Give it up."

"Not until you admit the truth," said Elizabeth. "Tell them what happened in 2003."

"You know what happened in 2003," said the Doctor. "You were there."

"Everyone died," said Elizabeth. "38,000 innocent human beings."

"Yes."

"Because of what you did," said Elizabeth. "A choice you made."

"An impossible choice," said the Doctor.

"For you, maybe," said Elizabeth. "Some people are all with the self-sacrifice. Buffy was."

The Doctor got up off the couch, and stood to face Elizabeth, staring at her with dark eyes. "I'm done with this," he said. "I'm done playing your games. I know what you're doing, here. I know what's happening to the people in this timeline. And it's going to stop. Now."

"Games!" Elizabeth cried — nearly screamed. "Is that all this is to you? A game? This is my life, Doctor! My friends! My family! This isn't a game!" She clenched her fists by her sides, her eyes blazing. "Don't you dare call this a game."

"I've far, far too many things to feel guilty about," said the Doctor. "Things I've actually done. I don't need any of your faults piled on top of that."

" _My_ faults?" Elizabeth asked. "You killed my mother!"

"I wasn't even there," the Doctor said.

"You didn't have to be," said Elizabeth. "I know what you're doing. You worked out what you believe my future has to be. You're trying to make it happen. Make sure I don't save them."

"All I'm trying to do is make sure time and space don't fall apart," the Doctor told her. "That's it!"

"That's what you always say," said Elizabeth. "Your universal excuse for mass slaughter. Well, guess what, Doctor? You taught me to stick up for what's right. You made me your Little Slayer. And I'm not letting you kill any more innocent people. I'm my own Slayer, now, and if it's a choice between you and 38,000 people, you're the one getting slain."

"I'm sorry you had to see what happened in 2003 — really, I am," said the Doctor. "And I'm sorry I couldn't stop it. But I couldn't. There was nothing I could do. It was a trap right from the start, and you and I both fell into it."

"A trap set up by Future-Me," said Elizabeth. "To control the world?"

"Yes."

Elizabeth looked at him like he was crazy. "You moron! Why the hell would I want to control the world?"

"I don't know, but that's what you were trying to do," said the Doctor.

"Or maybe," said Elizabeth, "I was just trying to undo everything you did! To me, to 38,000 people. Did you ever think about that? Maybe I was the good guy!"

The Doctor's stern expression fell a little. "I'm sorry. I am so, so sorry. But you will be evil by 2003. And it will be my fault. I couldn't change that back when I was still in your timeline, and I can't change it now."

"No, you're just trying to make sure it keeps happening exactly the way you think it did," said Elizabeth. "Even if that isn't actually what happened. Because, guess what? You can't blame Future-Me for everything. _You_ were the one who killed 38,000 people. _You're_ the one who keeps torturing me every single day of my life. _You're_ the one who killed my mother!"

"Elizabeth, I never killed your mother!" the Doctor insisted. "You know that."

"And now that you're in a new timeline, you're doing it all over again," said Elizabeth. "First you killed Buffy off. Next comes Dawn. And right down the list! All my friends. All my family. Everyone I've ever known and loved. Pick them all off, one by one. I mean, you killed them all in the other timeline, why not do it again?"

"I'm not planning to—"

"In 2003, in _this_ timeline," Elizabeth said, "the Hellmouth is going to open, killing everyone. You said so yourself. Massive rift energy from Sunnydale that made us crash, remember? And that's all the excuse you need to kill them. I mean, let's face it. If Buffy was still alive in 2003, she'd probably have stopped this whole Hellmouth-opening thing. So… better get rid of her! Oh, but wait. More little world-savers. Willow, Dawn, Giles, Tara, Xander. If any of them are still around, they'll probably stop it, too. Better get rid of them, as well. Anything to make sure the Hellmouth opens. Anything to make sure history works out the way you think it should." Elizabeth's hands bunched into fists by her sides, and she screamed, "Why don't you just admit that you're a monster and go die!"

The Doctor sighed. He took a step forwards, and Elizabeth's breathing became faster, panicky, as she stumbled back, away from him. The Doctor stopped.

"Elizabeth, I wish I could help you," he said. "But I can't if you won't accept the truth."

"The truth?" asked Elizabeth. "What about what you told me, earlier today? What about Dawn?"

The Doctor froze.

A terrible look sprang up on his face as he looked at Dawn, a dark, dangerous look, one that set all the Scoobies' teeth on edge. They began circling around Dawn, trying to edge her further away from the Doctor. Dawn stared at him, horror in her eyes.

"Are you going to kill her?" Elizabeth asked.

"Stop it," the Doctor said, through his teeth, snapping his head back to Elizabeth.

"There's no Buffy around to protect her, anymore," said Elizabeth. "You know how dangerous she is. Kill her off, now, and there's no way she'll be able to screw up your precious Web of Time."

The Doctor didn't answer.

"And major bonus! She's also my family," said Elizabeth. "Well, basically. Or are you still in denial about that? Do you still think it's okay to kill her, because she's not real?"

"There's someone in denial," said the Doctor. "But it's not me."

"You know, Giles brought up a good point," said Elizabeth. "You obviously know what Dawn is. You can see it. You know what can happen. You even knew what was going to happen last year. But you didn't kill Dawn last year. Why not?"

The Doctor said nothing, dark eyes fixed on Dawn.

"Well?" asked Elizabeth, with a challenging gaze. "I'm waiting."

The Doctor remained silent.

"Fine, don't tell me," said Elizabeth. "You just killed Dawn's sister. It's not like there's any reason I might be worried about you killing Dawn, too."

The Doctor's expression darkened, even more, tinged with a hint of self-loathing. Then he muttered something, his eyes dropping to the floor.

"Louder!" said Elizabeth.

"Because I was a coward!" the Doctor snapped. "There! You happy, now? I was a coward on Satellite Five, and I'm still a coward, now!"

Elizabeth glanced over her shoulder at Dawn, and raised her eyebrows. Dawn shuddered back a little further.

"See?" Elizabeth said to the others, turning away from the Doctor. "Denial. Scratch the surface, and the truth comes out."

The Doctor gave a bitter laugh. "Oh, and you would know something about that, Elizabeth."

Elizabeth turned on him, and ran over, ready to hit him, but Angel intercepted her. She took a long, steady breath, and stepped away from the Doctor.

"I'm what you made me," she growled.

"Yes," said the Doctor. "You are. But that doesn't make it right. That doesn't mean I'm going to let this timeline become a preview of what will happen in 2003 in your own."

"You're the only one that can make sure it doesn't!" Elizabeth shouted. "You're the one who killed them all!"

"Then I'll make sure it doesn't," said the Doctor. He regarded Elizabeth with cold eyes, then spun on his heels, and walked out of the house.

As the door slammed shut behind him, the entire Scoobie gang took a collected sigh of relief. Willow just stared off at where the Doctor had been standing, a puzzled expression on her face. Tara clutched her hand, tightly. Everyone else was fussing around Dawn, trying to make sure she was okay.

Dawn could barely speak.

"He… actually wants to kill me," Dawn said, at last. She hadn't fully believed it until just now.

"Dawn, he doesn't think of you as a real person," said Elizabeth. "If it wasn't for Buffy being around to scare him off, he'd have killed you last year. You heard him."

"But… last year… he told me I was real," said Dawn. "He said I was more real than he was. Why would he say that if he didn't think it was true?"

"The Doctor lies," said Elizabeth. "All the time. I keep telling you. He's not the guy you think he is. He has his views of what should and shouldn't happen. As long as his reality matches with the world, he's okay. The moment that doesn't happen… that's when he goes all killy."

"He always acted so nice to me," Dawn said. "And that whole time…" She shuddered.

"He's always planning something," Elizabeth explained. "This one girl he used to travel with — Ace. I met her. He screwed with her, manipulated her, used her as his puppet. He doesn't tell you he's doing it, but every action he takes is meant to ensure that one specific outcome occurs. His 'Web of Time' or whatever." She gave Dawn a sympathetic look. "I'm sorry."

"Buffy really thought the Doctor was a good guy," Willow said.

"I guess she was wrong," said Xander.

"I knew he'd show up here, eventually," Elizabeth told them. "Even though this was a different world. That's why I've been gathering an army. That's why I've been doing all of this! I needed to make sure that you guys were safe. I needed to save innocent lives." She looked over at Dawn. "I needed to save you."

Dawn ran over, and threw her arms around Elizabeth. "I love you," she said.

The moment the words passed Dawn's lips, Elizabeth froze. A flash of anger passed across her face, burning in her eyes, and she shoved Dawn away. "Get away from me," she growled.

Dawn blinked. "I… just meant…"

Elizabeth flew at Dawn, and smacked her across the face. "I don't care!" she shouted. "I hate you! Don't you get that? I hate you! I hate you! I hate you! I—"

Angel, Xander, and Giles all dove at Elizabeth, struggling to get her away from Dawn. Angel shouted, "Elizabeth!"

Elizabeth froze, and stopped fighting them. Her eyes went wide, and her face went pale, as she stared at Dawn.

Willow and Tara ran over to help Dawn. Dawn just kept staring at Elizabeth.

"You hit me," said Dawn.

"I hit you," Elizabeth breathed. There was a tremor of pure fear in her voice as she said it — a fear more raw and powerful than even the fear she'd shown when she faced the Doctor. She squeezed her eyes shut. "No! No! It wasn't me," she insisted. "I swear, it wasn't me!"

All the Scoobies just looked at her, not really sure what to say to this. They'd all seen it happen. They'd seen her do it.

"It's him," said Elizabeth, her every word more panicked and fearful. "It's the Doctor! He's the one making me do it. I can feel him. Inside my head. All the time. He's making me his Little Slayer, just like I'm supposed to be. Just like he wants me to be in 2003!"

Dawn rubbed at the spot on her face where Elizabeth had struck her. "The Doctor warned me!" she said. "He said if you returned, I should run."

"Dawn, he wants to kill you!" Elizabeth insisted. "He's trying to kill you so he can send me back. I don't want to kill you! I'd never — I swear, it's not me!"

"But if Dawn died before the Doctor could use the energy," said Giles, "then you would have to stay here. Forever. And that would match your plans quite well, wouldn't it?"

Elizabeth started struggling again. "No!" she screamed. "I'm not evil! I'm not a monster! I'm not! I'm not! I'm not!" With this last cry, she shoved her way out of their grips, and bolted out the door.

Xander made to follow Elizabeth, but Giles put a hand on his arm. "Let her go," he said. "Best she stay away from Dawn."

"Oh," said Anya, in a loud, chirpy voice, from several feet away. "So that's what it is! It's 'I love you'." She beamed in triumph, as if she'd just worked out something that had been bothering her for a while.


	19. Chapter 19

Xander looked over at Anya. "What's 'I love you', honey?" he asked.

"The phrase that sets her off," said Anya. "At first, I thought it was 'demon'. Then I thought maybe it was 'Doctor.' But I'm pretty sure it's 'I love you'."

"The phrase that sets her off?" asked Tara. "You mean… a trigger phrase?"

"Are you implying that Elizabeth's some kind of sleeper agent," said Xander, "and she has a trigger phrase that makes her want to kill her family and friends?"

"No," said Anya. "Of course not. This is more like… mental conditioning. I used to do it all the time, when I was a vengeance demon. Like, there was this one time, when a woman found out that her husband was sleeping with another woman, and she wished her husband would hate his girlfriend. I planted the suggestion in her husband's mind, so that every time he heard his girlfriend's name, it would make him hate her a little more. After about two months, the man just snapped and killed his girlfriend." She shrugged. "Looks like this is the same thing, except the phrase that sets Elizabeth off is 'I love you'. Any time anyone tells Elizabeth they love her, it makes her hate them a little more."

"Wait, what?" asked Xander.

"So… you're saying that Elizabeth isn't being swallowed up by a monster, or transforming into a demon, or anything of that sort?" Giles checked.

"No," said Anya. "She's just turning into… well, what Buffy would turn into, if she heard voices in her head constantly telling her to murder her friends."

"But… I've told Elizabeth that I love her," said Willow. She glanced over at Tara. "You know… in a platonic way." She looked back at Anya. "She's never tried to murder me."

"You haven't said it to her that much, though," said Anya. "Of all of us, Dawn's said it the most. And Elizabeth has been trying to drive a wedge in between you and Tara." Anya shrugged. "It's not her fault, really. She probably doesn't even know she's doing it."

"A wedge?" asked Tara.

"Yeah, I mean, she keeps telling you to use more magic," said Anya to Willow. She flicked her eyes over to Tara. "And she keeps telling you that Willow's using too much."

"How could she not know that she's doing it?" asked Xander. "She isn't a sleeper agent. Everything she's saying and doing — she remembers. She's aware. How could she do this stuff without knowing she's doing it?"

"Because she blames the Doctor," Willow realized. She looked around at the others. "You heard her, didn't you? Whatever this psychic conditioning thing is, whenever it kicks in, she thinks it's the Doctor. She thinks he's making her do it."

"Why?" asked Tara.

"Because they were in love," said Angel. "In the other timeline. He would have said that to her the most." He sagged against the wall. "I should have seen it, earlier. It makes everything make so much more sense."

"And if there is some sort of intricate connection between the two timelines… well, Buffy always did have trouble with the phrase, 'I love you'," said Giles.

"So did the Doctor," said Willow. "Buffy said he never even managed to say it to Rose before she left."

"Mom," Dawn cut in. "Mom would have told Elizabeth she loved her. A lot."

"And if she reacted this violently to Dawn after only two weeks," said Giles, "I suppose we know who… really murdered Joyce."

"She killed Mom?" Dawn cried. "Elizabeth killed Mom, in the other timeline, and then blamed the Doctor? But… but… Buffy would never do something like that!"

"Elizabeth wouldn't have known," said Anya. "I mean, she knows she's doing it, she knows she hates the other person, and she's probably able to tell that those feelings aren't coming from her. But she doesn't get _why_ it's happening. That's one of the things about the mental conditioning that makes it so affective as a revenge tool. The victim becomes increasingly paranoid as time goes on. For Elizabeth, it'd probably feel like… she was being swallowed up by some big evil thing at the bottom of her soul."

"From beneath you, it devours," Angel muttered.

"Just to check — this whole mental conditioning thing — not actually the Doctor's fault?" asked Xander. "Because Angel was pretty sure that the Doctor was the one who destroyed Elizabeth."

"I don't see what he'd possibly gain from it," said Tara.

"The Master did it," said Angel. He shook his head. "Elizabeth even told us. Just now! Remember? She said it started when the Doctor gave her CPR. Brought her back to life. Except it didn't. It must have started when the Master killed her."

"So, wait," said Tara. "If Elizabeth was wrong, and the Doctor was right… they both disagree about what happened in 2003. So what _did_ happen in 2003?"

"I don't know," said Angel. "If this is true… everything I know about 2003 is from Elizabeth. And she blamed the Doctor. For everything."

"Elizabeth became evil, set a trap for the Doctor," Anya supplied. "He said that. She'd be evil by 2003. And then past-Elizabeth and the Doctor showed up, and whatever Future-Elizabeth did turned past-Elizabeth into Future-Elizabeth, and—"

"What?" Xander asked.

"You lost me a long time ago," Tara agreed.

"The Doctor would probably explain it better," said Anya. "And… understand what actually happened. I mean, I sort of get the basics, but I don't know who specifically did what."

"Well, since the Doctor seems reluctant to divulge that information," said Giles, "I suppose we'll never know what really happened."

Angel gave a small sigh. "Buffy would have known. She was always good at getting the Doctor to tell her things."

Willow's eyes went wide. "The notebook!" she cried. She raced up the stairs, and darted into a room.

Everyone looked at everyone else.

"Okay, why didn't any of us think to check the notebook earlier?" asked Xander. "That should have been the first place we looked when Elizabeth showed up."

"To be honest, the idea never occurred to me," said Giles.

"Nor me," said Tara.

Anya gave a little shrug. "Don't look at me," she said. "I didn't know anything about a notebook."

Angel seemed mildly confused. "Notebook?"

"It's something that Buffy left for us," said Tara. "To keep us safe. She wrote down all the clues the Doctor kept dropping about the near future, and her thoughts about them. If she knew about her other-self, Buffy would probably have been curious enough to work out what happened, too."

"Does anyone else find it weird," said Xander, "that we all seem to be acting exactly the way Elizabeth wants us to act, without really knowing why?"

"What do you mean?" asked Giles.

"Well, none of us remembered to check the notebook," said Xander. "None of us stepped in to help the Doctor, when Spike beat him up. And that speech about taking back the night was really, really successful."

Willow raced down the steps, a bright red notebook in her hands. She was flipping through the pages, and her eyes lit up, as she folded the page back. "I got it!" she said. "What happened in 2003 in the other timeline!" Willow paused, at the bottom step, her eyes skimming across the page. "Oh."

"That sounds like a bad 'oh'," said Xander.

"No, not a bad 'oh'," said Willow. "More of a confused 'oh'. There are… two contradicting versions of what happened. One from a later Doctor. And one from an earlier Doctor."

"How contradictory are we speaking?" Giles asked.

"Well, the later Doctor doesn't want to talk about it at all," said Willow, "except that he fully blames himself. For everything. But the earlier Doctor gives a lot more information, and assigns himself a lot less blame." She looked up at them. "Buffy has her own views, of course."

"Which are?" asked Angel.

Willow stepped down from the bottom step, and went over to the dining room table, laying the notebook down where everyone could see it. Willow sat down on one of the chairs, and the others crowded around her, reading over her shoulder.

There, on the page, was a list of bullet points in two columns, containing information from the earlier Doctor, and the later Doctor. Below that was a brief explanation about how the two timelines are linked, along with the following summary from Buffy:

_This is what, I'm sure, happened in 2003 in the other timeline:_

_First, Elizabeth was in 2003 twice. Once as a time-traveler, out of time, with the Doctor. And once, living through it chronologically, after the Doctor dropped her off. Her future and past selves met. And, yeah, that would be super-weird._

_Second, Elizabeth was "destroyed" (whatever that means) before 2003. So 2003 didn't actually destroy her, it just helped push her over the edge. 2003 was important, because it was only after Elizabeth visited that year that she decided she had to kill the Doctor. I think this is because she saw everyone die, and thinks the Doctor killed them? Not sure. More on this later._

_Third — about 2003 itself. Here's what definitely happened. Some Big Bad was in Sunnydale in 2003. A Big Bad that was unstoppable, unkillable, unbeatable, a Big Bad that the Doctor either created or caused to arrive. That Big Bad killed everyone in Sunnydale — 38,000 innocent humans._

_As for the conflicting bullet points above this summary, here's what I think. I'm pretty sure the Doctor faced something, right around Donna's departure, that changed the way he viewed himself. He seems to have suddenly decided to take the blame for everything — not just 2003 in the other timeline, but everything bad that ever happened in the universe. Especially stuff about his former companions._

_So I'm pretty sure that's where the stuff from the later Doctor is actually coming from. I'm guessing the Doctor wasn't really responsible for a whole lot of what happened in 2003 in the other Sunnydale. He's just blaming himself like he always does._

_The earlier Doctor — the one with Donna — told me that in 2003, the Big Bad set a trap for him. That he was led to believe he was saving thousands of lives, when he was actually being made to destroy them. I think there was something about paranoia and a lack of trust — he wasn't really clear about that. But from all the hints he dropped, I'm pretty sure I know who the Big Bad was in 2003, and I'm sorry, Angel, but you're wrong. It wasn't the Doctor._

_It was Elizabeth._

_I've had some trouble coming to terms with that. (I'm sure the Doctor did, too, right after he visited 2003 — he probably was in as much denial as I was, when I first worked it out.) After all, Elizabeth is me — she started out as me, and if she became evil, it means I can, too. And I know I have that potential. Dracula saw that darkness in me. So did Sineya, when she told me death was my gift. And yes, that terrifies me. A lot._

_But the Doctor says one person can change the future, and you know what? I will. I don't care if Elizabeth turned evil, and the two timelines are linked. That doesn't mean I'm going to turn evil._

_I won't let myself turn evil. No matter what._

_Of course, if I don't turn evil, the Doctor will say it's because I'm a wonderful person, and if I do turn evil, he'll blame himself. I know that. He blames himself for destroying Elizabeth. For whoever's reading this notebook, if the Doctor shows up, and insists that whatever has happened to me is his fault (and I know he will), don't believe a word of it. And don't let him believe a word of it, either! Mr. Guilt-Trip likes to be all self-blamey, and it's usually not his fault._

_Here's the thing that gives me hope. The Doctor doesn't know how or why Elizabeth became evil. Earlier him seems to think it has everything to do with trust and manipulation, while later him seems to think it has everything to do with love. I'm going to go out on a limb, and guess that the Doctor honestly has no clue what really happened. Which leads me to one conclusion._

_The Doctor didn't destroy Elizabeth. Elizabeth destroyed herself._

_And that gives me hope. Because if Elizabeth did it to herself, it means she must have made some choice that turned her into what she became. Chances are, I'll face that same choice, at some point in my own future._

_I hope I'll have the courage to make the right decision, when the time comes._

"Oh, dear," said Giles.

Angel just shook his head. "Trust Buffy to get it right," he said. He kept staring at the notebook, guilt flooding his eyes. "I hated him for it. For a hundred years, I hated the Doctor for destroying Elizabeth. And it wasn't even his fault."

"I don't think Buffy got it right," said Xander.

Tara looked up at him. "Really? Why not?"

"Well, Elizabeth's not evil," said Xander. "She's not a monster. Think about it. She saves the world. She protects innocent people. And when she doesn't… well, when she hit Dawn, she was horrified. When she pushed Dawn, she started crying and locked herself in her room. In fact, until the Doctor showed up, she was ready and willing to go back to her own world to stop the time skips. That isn't exactly Big Bad territory. It isn't even Little Bad territory."

"She did murder her mother," said Giles.

"And she very nearly killed the Doctor," said Angel. "A number of times."

"And she interrogated the Doctor for eight hours," said Willow. "Then fed him to vampires."

"How did you know about the eight hours?" asked Tara. "And how did you know about the number 38,000?"

"Hey, yeah," said Xander. "Willow's been two steps ahead of all of the rest of us since we found the Doctor all blood-drawn and vampire-bitten."

"I… sort of remember this part," Willow confessed. "It was the weirdest thing before, and it made no sense whatsoever, but… okay, it's sort of like, everything that's happening now is because… no, wait, I mean, this is causing..." She gave up, and shook her head. "Never mind. It's just… weird and confusing."

"Look, all I'm saying is, Elizabeth isn't evil," said Xander. "Not Mayor evil. Not Master evil. Not Glory evil. Not even evil-Angel evil. She doesn't act like a Big Bad. We were all looking for signs that first week she showed up, remember? And she never gave us any. She just acted like… well, Buffy."

"Or at least, like a Buffy who's deathly afraid of the Doctor," Anya corrected.

"Fear makes a mob, hope makes an army," Giles muttered. "She always says that. Only — Elizabeth _isn't_ hopeful. She's afraid."

"Of the Doctor," said Angel.

"No, of herself," said Willow. She pointed at the part of the page where Buffy had written, _I won't let myself turn evil._ "Elizabeth keeps saying that. Remember? She's never upset when we compare her to Buffy. But she's really upset when we accuse her of being evil." She shook her head. "We're such idiots. We just keep saying, Elizabeth doesn't know what's happening, Elizabeth's innocent, Elizabeth's just doing exactly what Buffy would do under the circumstances. But… she isn't, you guys! She knows everything!"

"Everything about what?" asked Xander.

"2003," said Willow. "Her mother. The fact that she isn't in control of herself. Xander, she knew she was the one causing the time skips the whole time she was here, and she never told us anything, remember? And — you remember that time, after she first hurt Dawn, when she locked herself in her room and wouldn't come out because she was afraid? She was afraid of herself — she was afraid of what she might do to us. Elizabeth might think it's the Doctor in her head, but she knows that whatever she does as a result, she's the one who's really doing it."

"You mean… Elizabeth's lying to us?" Tara asked.

"She's lying to everyone!" said Willow. "Us, Angel, herself. That's what the Doctor meant when he said she was in denial. That's why she needed eight hours to convince the Doctor everything she ever did was his fault. Elizabeth blames the Doctor, because she's deathly afraid that she's actually the one to blame. If he admits he was at fault for what she's done, that will help Elizabeth to convince herself she's innocent, help cement her own denial. Elizabeth's been manipulating us this whole time to do her dirty-work. And we believed she was innocent, we believed everything she told us was true, because… well, I don't know why, but we just… did. Over and over again, we kept wanting to believe exactly what she wanted us to believe. About her, about the Doctor, about everything."

"But Xander is right — she still saves the world," Giles argued. "She still defends the innocent. She still goes out of her way to help strangers."

"Because she has to," Willow said. "Everything she told us, just before the Doctor woke up — even that whole speech about how the Doctor thinks he's a hero in his own mind, because if he didn't believe it, he'd crumble — it wasn't about the Doctor. It was about herself. Everything she's blamed the Doctor for is something she's terrified to admit that she did!"

"Uh, Will?" said Xander. "That last speech. Sort of mentioned the Doctor massacring Iphidrin. A whole ton of people. And… if the Doctor wasn't the one doing the massacring…"

Everyone looked at everyone else. They weren't really sure what to say to this. The pause lingered silently in the air, as they all digested what this meant, how this changed their views on Elizabeth. How this meshed with what they knew about her, already.

"Well, that's something…" Angel started, but trailed off.

"Buffy would never do," Tara finished. "Ever."

"Elizabeth did say she only killed those people because she thought it was right," Anya volunteered, in her usual perky voice. "She thought that the Doctor wanted her to do it, and that made it right. So, yes, she murdered a lot of people, but at least she did it for the right reasons!" Anya faltered. "Or what she _thought_ were the right reasons."

"I'm starting to understand why Elizabeth needed the full eight hours to convince the Doctor everything she did was his fault," said Xander.

"But she doesn't act like that, now," said Tara.

"Iphidrin… that particular experience occurred whilst she was travelling with the Doctor, yes?" Giles asked.

He tapped the notebook, where Buffy had written, ' _2003 was important, because it was only after Elizabeth visited that year that she decided she had to kill the Doctor.'_

"That was before she visited 2003," Giles continued. "Before she decided the Doctor was evil and she needed to fight him. I suppose that means… 2003 didn't 'push her over the edge'. It gave her a coping mechanism for her growing madness — one that did not involve the slaughter of innocents. Every ounce of fear and rage… is directed at a different source. The Doctor."

Tara turned to Angel. "You didn't know about any of this?"

"I swear. None of it. She always just seemed… like Buffy," Angel told them.

"She is," said Willow, "as long as she blames the Doctor, and spends every waking moment hating him and wanting to kill him. She thinks he's in her head. If she stops fighting him outside her mind, she'll stop fighting inside her mind, and what happened on Iphidrin will happen again. Except… you know, here. In Sunnydale."

"2003," Tara whispered.

"So you're saying Elizabeth's only acting all nice and saving people and stuff…?" said Xander.

"Because she has to," Angel agreed. "The Master screwed with her head, and this is the only way Elizabeth's found to combat it. Elizabeth has to believe that she's a hero and a sincerely good person, because if she doesn't, if she ever admits what she's actually done, she'll go insane and kill everyone. She only saves the world because she knows that if she doesn't save it, she'll destroy it."

"That's really sad," said Tara.

Willow nodded.

"I suppose that means there really is very little either we or the Doctor can do to help her," Giles said, with a sigh. "I was afraid of that."

"The Doctor's already helping her," Anya chimed in. "By letting Elizabeth keep trying to kill him."

"I know the Doctor likes to be helpful," said Xander, "but I'm guessing that isn't exactly the kind of help he had in mind."

"But why did none of us picked up on any of this before now?" asked Giles. "We've all been interacting quite closely with Elizabeth for the past two weeks, and we never noticed any of these… homicidal tendencies. As Willow says, we simply wanted to believe that Elizabeth was doing the right thing. For no apparent reason."

"I picked up on it!" said Anya. "I said she was turning evil."

"But we all ignored you," said Tara. "And… I'm not really sure why."

"Dawn picked up on it, as well," said Willow. "Not consciously, I mean, but subconsciously, she knew there was something wrong. She started acting weird, remember? And we all thought there was something wrong with her. But Dawn wasn't the one with the problem."

"Hang on," said Xander. "Where _is_ Dawn?"

The Scoobies all looked around, but sure enough, Dawn was gone.


	20. Chapter 20

The moment that Dawn had discovered the truth, she'd run. She was Buffy's sister. She was the person that Buffy had trusted with that notebook. She was the person that was supposed to be standing up for the Doctor, now that Buffy was gone. And she'd been so stupid, and she'd thought… she didn't even know what she'd thought.

No, she knew exactly what she'd thought. She'd heard the Doctor say that the only reason he hadn't killed her was because he was a coward. Like he should have killed her. And with Buffy gone, with no one to hold him back, she'd thought that maybe the Doctor would actually go through with it, this time. But the thing was… Xander had been right. If the Doctor wanted to kill Dawn, there would be absolutely nothing that any of them could do to stop him.

If he'd really wanted to kill Dawn, she'd be dead by now.

Besides, when they'd found the Doctor in the burned-out high school, he'd been worried about her right away. He'd warned her about Elizabeth, hadn't he?

Elizabeth. The monster. She should have seen it earlier. She'd _known_. Somewhere deep inside, she'd known that there was something weird about Elizabeth. And she'd dismissed it, because… well, she wasn't sure why. She'd thought, at first, that it was just because she'd wanted to believe that Elizabeth was Buffy. But… there'd been a lot of people acting weird, recently, without really knowing why. Acting the way Elizabeth would have wanted them to act. So was Elizabeth doing something to all of them to make them act that way?

Was _Elizabeth_ the one with the magic voice?

Dawn stopped, as she rounded a corner, and found the Doctor and Elizabeth, staring at each other, angrily, in the middle of the park by her house. The Doctor held a device in his hands — a very complicated-looking, oversized and bulky device that Dawn had never seen before.

"Are you going to tell me what this is about?" asked the Doctor.

Dawn ducked down behind a cluster of bushes, so she could overhear them. Both of them wanted Dawn… well, possibly dead and possibly not. And besides, Dawn could get a whole lot more information if she just listened to them talk to each other, without knowing she was overhearing.

"You mean you don't know what it is?" asked Elizabeth. "What it does?"

"I know what it is," said the Doctor. "It's a mind-control device. You'll build one just like it in 2003, extending beneath the entire city of Sunnydale."

"I know."

The Doctor shook the device at her. "You've already started, haven't you? This device is active. I can feel it. You've decided to make sure that 2003 comes early to this town."

"Then stop it," said Elizabeth.

The Doctor hesitated.

"Go on," said Elizabeth. "Do what you did last time. I'm ready for you, now."

"You've rigged it to destroy everyone it's hooked up to, haven't you?" asked the Doctor. "Just like in 2003."

"If you want to think of it like that," said Elizabeth. "Then yes. I have."

The Doctor shoved the device towards Elizabeth. "Stop this. Now."

Elizabeth didn't take the device. "No."

"I'm warning you, Elizabeth!" the Doctor said. "If you don't stop it, then I can't be held responsible for what happens to you."

"Oh, that's original," said Elizabeth. "Let me guess. If I don't stop it myself, you'll do something clever to the internal wiring? Reverse the polarity, so that it 'controls me' and you can 'make me stop'? Or maybe you'll just kill me — fry my brain, just like you did to everyone else in Sunnydale!" She threw up her hands. "Go on, then! Do it! Rewire the device and kill me!"

The Doctor narrowed his eyes at her. "What have you done to it?"

"Maybe I've done nothing," said Elizabeth. "Maybe I'd rather die than live with what you did to me!"

"Oh, no," said the Doctor. "I know how you operate. You're playing at something. You're always playing at something. So what is it?"

"I told you," Elizabeth said, through her teeth, "this _isn't_ a game!"

"No," said the Doctor. "It's not."

And he jerked the panel off the device. To kill Elizabeth, Dawn realized. Because he didn't know what Dawn knew, that it wasn't Elizabeth's fault she was acting this way. He didn't know that Elizabeth was mostly a good person, when he wasn't around. He didn't know he was… killing Buffy. Yes. That's what he was doing, he was going to kill Buffy, because maybe Elizabeth wasn't Buffy, but she _was_ , too. And Dawn couldn't let Buffy die again.

Dawn ran out into the open, and shouted, at the top of her lungs, "Stop!"

The Doctor froze.

Dawn stood beside them, panting. "It's not her fault," she said. "It's… someone did something to her head. And it's made her all paranoid and stuff. And she thinks it's you."

The Doctor blinked. "Sorry?"

"Oh, come on, do it already!" Elizabeth shouted at him. "Kill me!"

The Doctor looked between Elizabeth and Dawn. Then he threw the device at Elizabeth, who caught it instinctively. "I'm done with this," he said. "I'll find my own way. I've had enough of you and your mind games."

"Mind games?" Elizabeth asked, gripping the device tighter.

"Yes, mind games!" the Doctor told her. "Eight hours of trying to convince me that everything was my fault. Eight hours of asking me who I'd be willing to sacrifice, to stop you from doing something catastrophic."

"And you'd sacrifice anyone," said Elizabeth. "Even Dawn. Even my own family."

"Oh, is that what that was about?" asked the Doctor. "Is that the twisted logic behind your threat to open the Hellmouth if I didn't kill her? Because you wanted to prove to me that I murdered your mother?"

"You _did_ murder my mother!" Elizabeth shouted.

"I'm sorry about Joyce, I really am," said the Doctor. "But I didn't murder her. I wasn't even there!"

"It wasn't Elizabeth's fault!" Dawn protested.

"See?" Elizabeth said to the Doctor. "Dawn knows the truth. It's not my fault."

"It's not his, either," said Dawn. "He's not the voice in your head, Elizabeth. Anya said it was some kind of mental conditioning — something about the phrase 'I love you' — that makes you all paranoid and hatey and stuff."

Elizabeth's jaw clenched as she heard the phrase. The Doctor noticed, and raised an eyebrow. His eyes flicked down to her fingers, which were tapping out a rhythm against the side of the device. A pattern of four beats. The Doctor's face fell.

"Ah," he said. "I see."

"Oh, so you admit it, now?" asked Elizabeth. "That you've been making me do all these things?"

"I haven't," said the Doctor. "But I know who has. And I should have seen it sooner. That Dalek Infiltration Weapon — you weren't actually trying to kill me. Not really. You wanted to destroy my soul and take over my body. Picking up exactly where he left off on New Years' Eve, 2000." He closed his eyes in pain. "I'm sorry, Elizabeth. I am so, so sorry."

"He? You can't blame anyone else for this, Doctor," said Elizabeth. "I can feel you. In my head. All the time. You never stop. You want to turn me into a monster by 2003, and you're willing to tear apart my life to do it."

"It's not me," said the Doctor. "It's the Master. He must have implanted something in your mind when he killed you."

"You've got to be kidding me!" Elizabeth said. "The Master? Is there anyone you won't blame for this? You wanna go ahead and blame stupid Wilkins for this, too? Or ADAM?"

"You told Angel," said the Doctor, "to warn you about two things. Both of which wound up being the same thing. The Master. From beneath you, it devours, remember? Well, that's where he was. Stuck in the heart of the TARDIS. Right beneath us."

"Those warnings were about you!" Elizabeth shouted.

The Doctor raised an eyebrow.

"Okay, they were warnings to myself about me!" Elizabeth admitted. "But you know what? You're still the reason I'm like this. And don't you deny it! I've done the whole hypnosis thing with the Master, I know what that feels like. This isn't the Master in my head. It's you! I know it's you!" She drummed her fingers louder against the side of the device as she spoke, a rhythmic, four beat pattern repeated over and over again. "You're trying to turn me into a killer, and I won't do it! I refuse!"

"That's why you'll want to control the world in 2003," continued the Doctor, in the same steady, sad tone. "Because you've been manipulated for so very long, and you can't come to terms with it."

"Control the world?" Elizabeth cried. "You're on about that, again? You were there! You saw the device! You _know_ what it did!" She glared at him, her eyes shining with so much hurt and anger and betrayal that it made Dawn feel terribly guilty. "I'd never do what you did! I'd never kill 38,000 innocent people!"

The Doctor raised an eyebrow. "Iphidrin?"

"Iphidrin was your fault!" Elizabeth shouted. "Just like all the others! I only ever killed people for _you_ , Doctor! To make you happy, to make you proud. Just like all your other companions. The only difference between me and them is that _I_ noticed how you were manipulating those around you. And I decided it was wrong, that you were evil and I had to fight you. Once I left you, I changed! I made sure that Iphidrin would never happen again! 2003 was _not_ Iphidrin. Future me wasn't trying to do anything wrong!" Her hands shook with anger and pain. "It wasn't between Sunnydale and the world. All you needed to do was admit your own defeat and die, and you could have saved all of them."

"I'm sorry," said the Doctor. "But there's only one thing you'd need a mind-control device that big for. It's not your fault, but by 2003, you'll want to brainwash the entire world."

"I don't want to control the world," Elizabeth snapped at him. "I don't ever want to control the world. I don't care about what some jerk thinks in Tokyo. There's only one thing I want to control, Doctor. Me. Myself. My future."

"And you need a mind-control device the size of Sunnydale to do that?" the Doctor asked.

"I guess I will!" Elizabeth hissed.

"Wait! Stop! Don't kill each other!" called a voice from behind Dawn.

Dawn turned around, to find the rest of the Scoobies running towards them. Willow held a bright red notebook in her hands.

They stopped, as they approached, and bent over, hands on their knees, panting.

Xander held up a hand. "It's not the Doctor," he said. "Or Elizabeth. Everything that happened. It's neither of your faults. You're both heroes, and nobody has to die."

"And the Master is the murderous evil thing in your head," Anya offered. "Not the Doctor."

Elizabeth looked back at the Doctor. "Good to see you're up to your old tricks," she said. "How'd you manage to talk them all into believing you?"

"You're the one holding the mind control device," the Doctor reminded her.

"Sorry," said Giles. "Did you say 'mind-control device'?"

"A particularly nasty one," the Doctor agreed. "The TARDIS picked it up, yesterday. I tried to track it down, but Elizabeth caught me, first."

"Because I wanted to talk to you," said Elizabeth.

"Oh, yes, that's right!" said the Doctor. "I remember that. You tied me up and stuck me in a blown-up building, right beside the Hellmouth, where you spent eight hours playing your little mind games. You know, you could at least have provided tea."

The Scoobies were all looking at one another.

"I told you Elizabeth could convince anyone of anything," said Anya. "I just… didn't realize she was using a mind-control device to do it."

"That time we didn't help the Doctor," said Tara. "That was because she didn't want us to."

"I thought it was slightly unusual that she was able to rally the city together so quickly," said Giles.

"And the notebook," Xander added. "She didn't want us to check the notebook, so she made us forget about it!"

"What notebook?" asked Elizabeth. "What are you guys talking about?" She stared at them. "Wait, wait. You think I've been mind-controlling _you_?"

The Scoobies all shifted uneasily.

"Well, nice little mind-control device you've assembled," said the Doctor. "Powerful enough to control a small town. People behaving oddly nearby. Not a hard conclusion to draw."

Elizabeth turned to Willow. "You know machines," she said. She thrust the device at Willow. "Here. Look at this."

Willow took the device, hesitantly, and inspected it. She blinked, then inspected it again. She looked up at the Doctor, confused. "There's no power source," she said. "It… doesn't work."


	21. Chapter 21

"Exactly," said Elizabeth. "No power source. That thing hasn't been working the entire time I've been here. All that stuff you did — not defending the Doctor, rallying for support in fighting off the monsters, this notebook whatever — that was you. I had nothing to do with any of it."

"But… we would have helped the Doctor, if we'd been not-mind-controlled," said Tara.

"Then why didn't you?" asked Elizabeth.

Xander had a slightly guilty expression on his face. "Okay, if no one else wants to admit it, I will," he said. "I didn't help, because I was afraid of him. There. I said it."

The others all looked down at their feet, a little embarrassed.

"You are kind of terrifying, sometimes," Willow admitted to the Doctor. "And anyways, Buffy — I mean, Elizabeth — sort of… you know." She shrugged.

A spark of understanding dawned in the Doctor's eyes. As if he'd just put the last puzzle piece in, and could see what was truly going on. Then he turned back to Elizabeth, resuming his previous seriousness. "I know that device was active before," he said. "I felt it. There _was_ a power source."

"Of course it was active when you touched it!" Elizabeth said. "It's feeding off of you. _You're_ the power source!" She gave an annoyed sigh. "Don't you get it, Doctor? I keep telling you, over and over again. I don't want to control mass numbers of people." She glared at the Doctor. "Just one person."

"What?" cried the Doctor. "You used me as the power source? How?"

"How do you think?" said Elizabeth. "I learned a lot when I was with you. This thing's powered by temporal radiation. And you're covered with it." She folded her arms. "I'm not evil, you know. Yeah, I was trying to trick you, but I wasn't going to hurt anyone else. If you'd done what you were planning, tried to deactivate the device, you'd have locked it on yourself. The only people that could have even been affected were you and me. After all, we're the only ones who've travelled through time."

"You were trying to mind-control me? With that?" The Doctor pointed at the device. "That sort of mind control device wouldn't even dent the sides of a Time Lord psyche! To fully control my mind, you'd need a device at least the size of…" He trailed off, a growing horror on his face. "Sunnydale."

Elizabeth raised her eyebrows at him, pointedly.

"But… wait, why would you need to brainwash the Doctor to change your own future?" asked Dawn. "If you wanted to change your own future, why didn't you just do it yourself?"

"She couldn't," said the Doctor, his voice quiet and flat. "2003 was a paradox. By witnessing Future-her's actions, Past-her became Future-her. She created herself. It's a fundamental part of the Web of Time. That's why Elizabeth's arrival here was causing so many problems. Elizabeth has to be in the other timeline, in Sunnydale, in 2003. Twice. There's nothing anyone can do to change that."

"Says you," said Elizabeth. "Time Lords have all sorts of ways to deal with paradoxes. But he wouldn't use them. Not to save 38,000 lives. Not to stop himself from killing everyone in Sunnydale. He wanted to make sure it happened. He wanted to make sure everyone died and I turned into a monster."

"Ah, yes," said the Doctor, with a sigh. "Paradox Machine. Of course you'd want to build one of those. Course, what with there still being Time Lords in your timeline, that would have worked for all of about two seconds, until the Time Lords detected the machine and destroyed it."

"Which is why I needed you, and not just any Time Lord," said Elizabeth. "Because if there's one guy who knows how to evade the Time Lords, it's you."

"I don't get it," said Tara. "Who was the Big Bad in 2003?"

"He was," said Elizabeth, pointing at the Doctor. "He killed everyone in Sunnydale."

"You wanted me to kill everyone," said the Doctor. "You created yourself. That's the paradox. Maybe you weren't trying to control the world, but that doesn't alter the facts. Future-you sabotaged the device. Future-you _wanted_ to make sure I killed everyone in Sunnydale, so your past-self would hate me. You _weren't_ trying to change the future, Elizabeth. You were trying to make sure it happened!"

"I'm not going to listen to you anymore!" Elizabeth hissed. "I'm not turning back into your monster! I'm not going to be a murderer, again! Just because you have some twisted view of how history happened doesn't mean you can turn me into a cold-blooded killer! What you made me do when we were travelling was wrong, and I won't do it! Not again!"

"Wait," said Willow, still examining the mind control device. "There's something wrong. Right over here. See?"

Elizabeth frowned, and went over to Willow, examining the wiring inside the device. Her eyes widened. "I… didn't mean to do that," she said. She looked up at Willow. "I really, really didn't mean to do that. That was a mistake."

"Mistake?" asked Giles.

"Yeah… it's just like in the Buffy-bot, that first day she arrived," said Willow. "Except, you know, more fatal and stuff. I mean, if the Doctor had rewired the mind control device the way Elizabeth wanted, this little thing here would have short circuited. Elizabeth wouldn't have controlled the Doctor's brain. She would have fried it."

"Fried it…" said Dawn. She looked over at the Doctor. "Isn't that what you said happened in 2003? That everyone got their brains fried?"

"So in 2003, in the other timeline, Elizabeth is going to try to trick the Doctor into becoming her mind-controlled zombie," said Xander. "Except there'll be a design problem, so she'll actually wind up tricking the Doctor into frying the brains of everyone in Sunnydale." Xander reflected. "Wow. You know, that sort of sucks."

"So it was an accident!" said Anya. "See? Aren't you two happy you didn't kill each other, now?"

"Yep, looks like it was no one's fault!" said Xander, pointedly addressing the Doctor and Elizabeth. "Which means you're _both_ heroes, fighting for justice and hope and all sorts of good things, and no one has to go crazy and kill anyone else!"

The Doctor's face went very pale, as he stared at the mind-control device. A look of complete horror sprung up in his eyes, and his hands shook. Elizabeth noticed, her keen eyes fixed on him.

"It's my fault," said the Doctor. "I did it. I killed everyone in Sunnydale. 38,000 innocent human beings. For no reason."

Elizabeth had a self-satisfied smile on her face. "Told you."

The Doctor's gaze shifted to Elizabeth. "You were right."

"I was right," Elizabeth agreed.

The Doctor ran a hand through his hair. "I'm sorry," he said. "I am so, so sorry."

He turned on his heel, and ran off in the direction of his TARDIS.

Xander stared after him, confused. "Okay," he said. "I guess 'it was no one's fault' is alien for 'you should blame yourself for everything'."

"He should," said Elizabeth, tucking the device under her arm. "It was his fault it happened."

And as they all turned and headed for the Summers residence, Willow stayed, a few moments longer, in the park, the wind rushing through her hair. Tara noticed, and came back for her. She caught Willow's arm.

"Willow?" she asked.

"Just like he said, before," said Willow. "Eight hours, and Elizabeth couldn't break him. Three words from me, and he fell apart." She looked over at Tara. "Knowing the future sucks."

Tara tucked Willow's arm in hers, and let Willow cuddle into her. Then they followed the others home.


	22. Chapter 22

In the Summers residence living room, the Scoobies had all sat down to figure out what they were going to do next. The Doctor had materialized his TARDIS where it sat, now, right smack in the center of the room. He'd ducked his head out the door, to make sure he was in the right place, then gone back inside to do something to some telepathic circuits, so he could get Elizabeth home. None of the Scoobies really understood what that meant. But they were all ready to placate Elizabeth, or protect Dawn, or whatever else needed to be done.

Except Elizabeth, far from what everyone had expected, wasn't kicking up a fuss.

"So… you're just okay with going back, now?" asked Tara.

"Yep," said Elizabeth. "He's finally admitted the truth, which means he'll probably get all mopey and depressed and throw himself down a black hole or something. So, the Doctor's basically dead anyways, and that gets him out of the way! And this time, when I go back, I'll know that I have to fix that little design thingy that Willow pointed out when I build the super-mind-control device. This time, I'll break the cycle. This time, I'll get the Doctor's brain and make sure that no one else dies."

"Okay… this is just a crazy Xander idea, here, but… have you ever considered that the best way to change your future is… _not_ to try to mind-control the Doctor?" Xander asked her.

Elizabeth looked at him as if he was insane. "That would never work!" she said.

"I'm just throwing it out there as a possibility," said Xander. "That's all. I mean, if you don't build the device in the first place—"

"Then my future will _have_ to happen, and I won't be able to change it!" Elizabeth told him. "Don't you get it? It makes perfect sense!" She unconsciously tapped her fingers against the couch in a rhythmic, four-beat pattern as she spoke. "I have to fight the Doctor!"

"Yeah, but he isn't actually the voice in your—" Anya tried.

"Just stop," said Elizabeth. "I don't know what kind of hold he has over you, but just stop. I'm not giving in to him. You're not going to convince me to give in."

"Xander, Anya, just leave it," said Willow. She could see pretty easily that Elizabeth wasn't going to compromise on this. It was the one thing she was certain of — the Master was _not_ the voice in her head. It was the Doctor. (And of course, if the Master had been the one who'd done it, he'd want to make sure she never doubted it was the Doctor all along.)

All of which meant that, in Elizabeth's mind, the only way for it to stop was for her to mind-control or kill the Doctor. If she didn't, it was only a matter of time before she went crazy and destroyed the world — the one thing she couldn't allow herself to do.

Elizabeth would build that machine in 2003. Nothing the Scoobies or Willow could say would change that.

But Willow had pointed out that wiring problem to her. Elizabeth would fix it. The tragedy of 2003 didn't have to happen anymore! And as for the Doctor — well, the Doctor was smart, in any incarnation. If the past Doctor was smart enough to see through Elizabeth's plan — and Willow was guessing he was — she still wouldn't mind-control him. She'd just fix the machine so that she wouldn't kill anyone else while she was trying.

All Anya and Xander were doing now was risking Elizabeth's entire web of denial falling apart, pushing her into crazy psychosis. Xander caught Willow's eye, and realized what the problem was, immediately. He whispered something to Anya, and she nodded.

And Willow knew… she and the other Scoobies were only trying to discourage Elizabeth's denial because none of them wanted to come to terms with their own. The denial that had led to their trusting Elizabeth so completely. The denial that had led to them not checking the notebook, them collaborating with Elizabeth on all her little schemes, them not helping the Doctor when Elizabeth didn't want them to. It was the truth that none of them really wanted to face. Elizabeth wasn't Buffy.

Because Buffy was dead.

(And they could never, ever get her back.)

Elizabeth looked down at her hands, and noticed the four beat rhythm she was tapping against the couch. Her eyes went wide with horror, and she stopped tapping the rhythm, clenching her hands into fists instead. Clenching her hands into fists — just the way she always did, Willow realized, whenever she was under stress. A look of intense concentration crossed Elizabeth's face, as she fought an inner battle that none of them could see, forcing back something too evil for any of them to understand.

The Doctor stepped out of the police box, and folded his arms across his chest. Elizabeth wouldn't even look at him, just stared, determinedly, at the floor. "I've made telepathic contact with my friend," he said. "It'll be a few minutes before I can get you home."

Elizabeth nodded.

"So… you're not going to kill Dawn?" asked Tara.

The Doctor raised an eyebrow. "Sorry?"

"No great big swirling portals and magic blood and crying girls?" Xander checked.

"Why is everyone so convinced that I want to kill Dawn?" the Doctor asked them. "I'm quite fond of Dawn."

Everyone looked at Anya, who tried to do her best to melt into the couch.

"Well, it's just… you said you needed the Key to send Elizabeth back home," said Anya. "And Dawn's the Key, and she's the one who opens portals to other worlds and stuff, so… it just made sense."

"Dawn isn't the Key," said the Doctor, his voice tinged with vague amusement. He noticed the blank looks around him, and shrugged. "Look. Far as I know, far as you know, and far as the rest of the universe knows: the Key to Time was destroyed in the War, Dawn's a normal human being, all your memories are perfectly fine, and any rumors about a seventh segment are absolute rubbish. That's all I'm saying on the matter. To anyone." He gave Dawn a little wink.

"Huh?" asked Xander.

"He means you guys are being total spazzes, and he's not going to kill me," Dawn explained, rolling her eyes. "I always knew he wasn't."

The Scoobies all breathed a collective sigh of relief. And Willow realized that Buffy must have known this all along. Buffy had trusted the Doctor to protect Dawn, even if he'd… done whatever he'd done last year with that whole in-and-out-of-time thing (which was weird and confusing and made Willow's head hurt).

"There's one thing I still don't get, though," said Dawn. She turned to Elizabeth. "In your timeline, did you really kill Mom?"

Everyone tried to hush Dawn, but the damage was done. Dawn had already asked the question.

Elizabeth glared at the police box. Then dropped her eyes down to the ground. "Yes," she admitted.

No one said anything for several long minutes, but they all tensed. Would this be enough to send Elizabeth over the edge? Would this admission be enough to make Elizabeth believe she wasn't a truly good person, to turn Elizabeth into a crazy psychopath?

So far, the question hadn't sent Elizabeth off the deep end. That was a good sign. But Willow wasn't sure what she and the others should do, now. Should they ignore this confession of hers, or try to deny it, encourage her own self-denial?

"How?" asked the Doctor, suddenly.

Everyone looked up at the Doctor, trying to give him a death glare, but he didn't notice.

"No, really," said the Doctor. "How'd you do it? How'd it happen? What makes you think it was your fault?"

"Because I should have been there!" Elizabeth shouted. "Mom was just lying here, on the couch, dead, while I was out talking to Warren's stupid robot, trying to avoid her because I hated her and I didn't understand why. And if I'd just come home sooner… I could have done CPR or called the hospital or something! I should have been able to stop it! I should have been able to save Mom's life!" She buried her face in her hands, and burst into tears. "I really am a monster."

Willow, Tara, and Dawn all tried to comfort Elizabeth, trying to reassure her that that kind of thing wasn't actually her fault, that she _didn't_ actually murder her own mother. The Doctor didn't. He just raised his eyebrows, as if to say, 'I knew it.' Then he went back inside the TARDIS.

"Remember that 'kind of a jerk' thing I said earlier?" said Xander, looking at the police box. "I stand by it."

(Willow just kept remembering — _It's easier to blame himself for the crimes of others than it is to blame himself for his own crimes_ , Elizabeth had told them, earlier that evening. Another one of her own traits she attributed to the Doctor.)

Elizabeth wiped her eyes. "Willow," she said. "I… I have to talk to you. Alone. Before I go."

Willow hesitated, but nodded.

Elizabeth and Willow went upstairs, to Buffy's old room, and closed the door. Elizabeth took a deep breath.

"I'm sorry," she said. "About… you know. The evil thing."

"It's not your fault," Willow reassured her. "And you're not evil — you're a hero. Really. I mean, everything you've done the past two weeks was just amazing. Like, Buffy amazing."

"At least Buffy got a choice," said Elizabeth. "Chose to save the world. Chose to help people. I never did."

"Um… Buffy sort of didn't, either," said Willow. "She sort of… look, never mind. The important thing is, you're a hero. You're always throwing yourself into danger to save innocent people, you're always sticking up for what's right. And… and you didn't actually kill your mother, either!"

"I know," said Elizabeth. "It was the Doctor." She gave Willow a small smile, and Willow could see that healthy dose of denial that had been keeping her sane throughout the years rising up, again. Blaming the Doctor for everything she'd ever done. And everything she hadn't done, but inwardly blamed herself for.

"You know, that whole not-killing-the-Doctor thing that Xander mentioned — you might want to consider that," Willow added. "Not that you're not still a hero, or anything! And you can still hate the Doctor and blame him for all your problems. Just… maybe you could do that without wanting to kill him?"

Elizabeth hung her head. "I've thought about it," Elizabeth confessed. "So many times, I've thought about it. Giving in to the Doctor, doing what he keeps telling me in my head, letting myself become a monster like he says. It would be so much easier to give in, kill all my friends and family, start torturing and conquering, and…" she shuddered. "Everything else. Things you don't even want to know about. You don't know how hard it is for me, Will. Fighting every single second of the day. Making sure there isn't a single moment I'm not completely in control… just in case…" She hugged Willow, tightly. "I'm sorry."

Willow hugged her back, not exactly sure how to reply to this.

Elizabeth pulled out of the hug, and took a deep breath. She then replaced the sad expression with a determined one. "But I don't care if it's hard. I have to do it. I can't give in, not even a little bit. Because the moment I start, I don't know if I'm ever going to be able to stop. So I won't start. I might not be a superhero, but I'm strong enough to fight against the Doctor. And I will. I promised myself I wouldn't become a monster, Will, and I'm going to make sure I keep that promise. I'm going to keep defending the Earth, keep saving people's lives, keep stopping the monsters and doing the right thing. Until the day I die, I swear, I'm going to defend humanity and the people I love!"

Willow nodded, slowly. She still had no idea what to say to this. Elizabeth seemed completely convinced that fighting against the murderous voices in her head was the same as fighting against the Doctor. Kill the Doctor, and no more voices. Stop trying to kill the Doctor, and it meant she had to give into the voices.

The only thing Willow could do, by encouraging Elizabeth not to hate the Doctor, was push Elizabeth into a major mental breakdown, resulting in full-scale carnage. So Willow decided to just drop it.

"But that's not why I need to talk to you," said Elizabeth. "Look, Willow. It's about Buffy."

Willow felt every muscle in her body tense.

"I mean, I've heard you guys talking about her," said Elizabeth, "and I sort of… overheard when you were telling Tara about… the Hell dimension thing. And I don't know where Buffy's soul is. But I do know one thing." She gave a soft smile. "Buffy isn't really gone."

Willow blinked. "What?"

"The Doctor said her death was a fixed point in time," said Elizabeth. "But the thing is, when I was talking to him, during those eight hours, I found out… Will, the Doctor's seen her. Buffy, I mean. The Doctor's seen her in the future. Your future, his past. He's seen her several times. And every time he's run into her, after 2001, she keeps telling him to remember that she's still alive."

"But time can be rewritten," said Willow. "Time has been rewritten. He might still remember it because he's all Time Lordy, but none of it's actually going to happen. Not anymore."

"Except you _can't_ rewrite a fixed point in time," said Elizabeth. "That's why the Doctor assumed she'd survived the portal, or wound up in a parallel universe or something. That's why he keeps insisting that Buffy shouldn't have died, that it doesn't make sense. He's seen her in the future, and that's impossible if she died in a fixed point. There has to be some probability that the future was different, some chance that Buffy could have survived — and if her death was fixed, that probability is 0. Which means, if the Doctor's really seen Buffy alive in the future, then the event that decides whether Buffy lives or dies _isn't_ her jumping into the portal. It's… well, actually, I think it's you."

"Me?" asked Willow.

"Willow," said Elizabeth. "You can bring Buffy back."

Willow said nothing.

"I don't know how or why it's possible," said Elizabeth, "but it's the only thing that makes sense! Think about it. There's some way that Buffy managed to keep being alive, even though she died. And if it had been anything else — like she got sucked into a parallel world or was in a super coma or something — the Doctor would have worked it out and told you how to bring her back. The only reason he's not is because she really is dead, but there's some crazy witchcrafty way to revive her. Something the Doctor doesn't want you to know about."

"Because it would be wrong," Willow said, in a flat voice. She wasn't sure if she believed it herself.

"To the Doctor," said Elizabeth. "But… seriously. Don't tell me you've never seen him make a mistake. Who cares if it goes against his precious laws of time and space? Wherever Buffy ended up, whatever nightmare she's living, you can save her from it, Willow."

"I can save her?" Willow asked.

"Yeah," said Elizabeth.

"You're not just trying to be all evil and mind-controlly and stuff?" Willow double-checked.

Elizabeth put her hands on her hips. "Willow," said Elizabeth. "I've never been evil and mind-controlly and stuff. The only person I'm evil and mind-controlly towards is the Doctor — and he deserves it."

But Elizabeth's idea of reality didn't always match the outside world. Willow knew that. She crossed her arms. "How can I trust you? What if you're just trying to make things worse?"

"Okay, okay," said Elizabeth. "I get that you don't trust me. But this is real. When the Doctor saw Buffy in the future, she kept making sure he knew she was alive. She told him, over and over again. 'Remember, in — whatever year he saw her in — I'm alive'. But not just any him. The younger him. The version of him that hadn't been to this time and place, yet. If you were stuck in a Hell dimension, tortured for all eternity, and you wanted to give your friends a sign to get you out, what would you do?"

"Tell the time traveler," Willow realized.

"Exactly!" said Elizabeth. "It's a sign, Will. Don't you see? Buffy's giving you a message back through time. She's asking you to rescue her. Wherever her soul's wound up, she wants to come back." Elizabeth gave a little shrug. "You can ask the Doctor about what Buffy told him in the future. He'll agree with me. Just remember — if you tell him you're planning to revive Buffy using magic, he'll stop you. Stupid Web of Time stuff and everything."

Willow remembered the way the Doctor had reacted to Buffy's death. The way he'd kept insisting that she was alive. That she'd survived. That she wasn't really gone. And he'd even said that exact phrase — "she told me to remember…." Elizabeth was right. This was a message from Buffy. Buffy was in Hell, Buffy was in trouble, and she wanted Willow to bring her back to life.

"Thing is," Elizabeth continued, "Buffy's like… the me I should have been. The me I wished for. And if she's around…" Elizabeth took a deep breath. "If she's around, I know you'll all be okay." She looked into Willow's eyes, pleading. "And, well, _that's_ why I'm okay going home. It's not because of the Doctor, it's not because of the mind control machine thing. It's because… if I go home, I know you guys can get Buffy back, and then you'll all be okay. And I need you to be okay. All my friends are going to die. I can't let you guys die, too."

Willow threw her arms around Elizabeth, who hugged her back. Because in spite of the evil-thing, Willow liked Elizabeth. She was so strong, so brave, so determined to do the right thing. Even in the face of evil murderous voices in her head, she still fought for what was right. And fighting against all odds for what was right — that was just so Buffy.

"I'm going to miss you," said Willow.

"Me too," said Elizabeth. She gave a soft laugh. "Other-you is never going to believe half this stuff."

Willow pulled away. And in that moment, in that instant, she made up her mind. She didn't care how many rules of the universe it broke. She didn't care what the consequences were. Elizabeth was right. The Doctor could chide and chastise and whine about the laws of the universe all he wanted, but the era of the Time Lords was over. The Doctor wasn't the ultimate authority over everything.

Willow was going to bring Buffy back.


	23. Chapter 23

The Doctor heard a knock on the door of his TARDIS. He shouted at the person to come in, and the doors creaked open.

He poked his head out from the central console, and was surprised to find Angel standing in the doorway.

"Oh, hello," said the Doctor. "Didn't expect you."

"A few years ago," said Angel, "you told Buffy that you'd forgiven me. For what I did in Romania."

A half grin lit up the Doctor's face. "I suppose I did."

"It took you fifty years, but you forgave me."

"Well, fifty-ish," said the Doctor. "Bit hard to tell, what with time and space falling apart. Could have been more around 500. Or could have been negative time. Maybe I got younger. That'd be a bit of a change, wouldn't it?"

Angel ignored the Doctor's rambling. "I just wanted to let you know," he said. "It's taken me one hundred years. But I forgive you. For Elizabeth."

The Doctor's grin fell off his face. "Ah." He scratched the back of his neck. "You shouldn't, you know."

Angel shrugged. "You shouldn't have forgiven me, either."

"Yes, well, thing is, that one wasn't exactly _your_ fault," said the Doctor. "What with… soul and all that. But this one… well, turns out, pretty much my fault."

"And the Master's," said Angel.

The Doctor said nothing for a moment. "The Master destroyed her," he said, carefully. "But I'm the one who let her be destroyed."

Angel gave a slow nod. "You… are sure your TARDIS translation circuits are functioning correctly, right? Because either you're not understanding anything we've been saying, or you really need to see a psychiatrist."

The Doctor put on a false grin that didn't reach his eyes. "What, you think I don't know how to speak English?" he asked. He pointed to his own chest. "Five billion languages. Complete and utter genius. Absolutely brilliant." His eyes strayed to the central console, and he ducked down again, to do some more repairs.

"You're never going to come back to Sunnydale, are you?" asked Angel. "Now that Buffy's gone?"

"Don't have to," said the Doctor. "Sunnydale's fine. Perfectly fine. Safe and dandy."

"Aside from being right on top of the Hellmouth," said Angel.

The Doctor glanced over at Angel. " _You're_ not staying."

Angel faltered. "I have… prior commitments," he said. "In LA. And… Tibet."

The Doctor waved the sonic screwdriver at the central console. " _Prior_ commitments?" he asked.

"Well, commitments," Angel confessed.

Brought about by this meeting. By this particular incident. And as the Doctor checked the TARDIS monitor, for the thousandth time since last evening, examining the graphed biosignature throughout all of time and space, he knew that he, too, had 'prior' commitments. Perhaps not in Tibet or LA, but 'prior' commitments all the same.

"As do I," the Doctor told him.

Angel nodded, slowly. "And Dawn?"

"Safe," said the Doctor. "Throughout her life. Checked up on her already. Before… all this." He gave a small sigh. "Suppose I should double check, now that I know that the future's changed. Now that I know I…" He trailed off.

"You didn't kill Buffy," Angel told him. "The portal, Glory, none of that was you. I heard what happened, and it wasn't your fault. Buffy… wouldn't have wanted you to blame yourself."

The Doctor didn't answer. What was the point? It wasn't about what Buffy wanted, it was about responsibility, facing up to the consequences of your own actions. And the Doctor had to take responsibility for this.

Because he knew there was only one being left in all of time and space that could change a fixed point in time. And that fixed point — with the portal — had been changed, somehow. It had to have been. Buffy had been alive in 2005 — back in his own past. In his own past, Buffy had jumped into that portal and survived. And now, in his present — she hadn't. That entire stretch of future had been erased.

The Doctor didn't understand how or why or what he'd done, but he couldn't deny the facts. Every time he checked the TARDIS monitor, it told him the same thing. Now, in 2005, and forever. Buffy Anne Summers was dead.

And the Doctor had killed her.

He kept looking down at the central console. Unable to meet Angel's eyes. Because he knew that Angel was wrong. Wrong about Buffy, wrong about Elizabeth, wrong about all of it.

By the time this was over, Angel would hate him again.

(And he would hate himself a little bit more.)

* * *

It was over far quicker than Willow had imagined.

Yes, they'd had to wait a bit, and Elizabeth had gotten impatient and started knocking on the TARDIS door, and then there'd been a shouting match where Elizabeth called the Doctor a monster and a murderer and told him that he was the origin of all evil in the universe, but when the actual sending-back process happened, it was really quite quick.

One moment, Elizabeth was there, and then — a flash of blue light, and a rush of wind that tore through the living room — and Elizabeth was gone. Back to her own world. Back to her own future.

But no.

Back to change her future. Because the accidental wiring thing she'd done wasn't going to happen anymore. Those people didn't have to die. Everything would work out okay. They'd changed the future. They'd saved the other Sunnydale.

The Doctor leaned back against the TARDIS. He didn't look like a man who'd just saved an entire town of people. He had a terrible weariness about him, a terrible guilt, a terrible hopelessness in his eyes.

(One that Willow recognized.)

"Are you okay?" Dawn asked him.

The Doctor looked down at her. "I just killed 38,000 people," he said.

"No, you didn't," said Xander. "Remember?" He spoke the next words slowly and precisely, as if speaking to an infant. "Not your fault. In English, that means you didn't do it."

The Doctor gave a small shake of his head. "I did it. Just now. You saw me."

"Just now?" asked Giles. "You mean, sending Elizabeth back to her own world?"

"That wiring fault," said the Doctor. "I found it. In 2003. In the other timeline. I was working from a diagram she'd drawn before she built the device, and I found it. When I reversed the polarity, I compensated for it." He glanced over at Willow. "But she remembered. She remembered this. She fixed it. Which meant, when I rewired the system, I didn't get rid of it. I added it in again — backwards. The machine was supposed to control everyone who travelled through time. I fried the brains of everyone in Sunnydale who _hadn't_. 38,000 people."

"But… Elizabeth's traveled through time," said Willow. "Wouldn't that mean… she survived?"

"She did," said the Doctor.

"Elizabeth said you killed her," said Angel. "Her future self."

"She thought so," said the Doctor. "Past her, I mean. I didn't… have the heart to tell her what really happened. To her future self. Turns out, she lived a long time. Long, long time. Locked up in a UNIT prison cell, charged with crimes against humanity."

"But she wasn't trying to control the world," said Xander. "Or even kill any humans. There were no crimes against humanity!"

"I didn't know that then," said the Doctor. "And now that I do, I can't change it. Timeline's locked. Back then, I was sure it was a trap — that she wanted me to kill everyone. I mean, looking at the people who survived — they were friends of hers, the only people she'd _want_ to survive. But, well. I suppose all of them had travelled through time, at least a little bit." He stared straight ahead, into the distance.

"But if that all happened because she fixed the fault… why didn't you just tell her not to fix it?" asked Dawn. "She was right here, and you knew. If you just said something…" She trailed off, as she saw the dour expression on the Doctor's face. And she realized, all of a sudden. "You wanted to make sure it happened. You wanted to make sure they all died."

"Yes."

"You just killed 38,000 people," said Dawn.

"Yes."

"Why?" Dawn cried.

"Because I had to," said the Doctor. "Because Elizabeth's personal timeline has to be stable, or this one falls apart. I have to keep that consistent. That's how time works."

"But Buffy wouldn't have—" Dawn started.

"She's gone," said the Doctor. "Elizabeth isn't her. I'm certainly not her. If Buffy were here, she would have made me stop 2003 from happening. Made me fix Elizabeth."

"Fix…" Angel trailed off, mounting horror in his eyes. "You could have saved Elizabeth? Stopped the mental conditioning? And you didn't?"

"I told you you shouldn't have forgiven me," said the Doctor.

"Why?" Angel demanded. "Even if you thought you had to make 2003 still happen, even if you thought 38,000 deaths was okay — why would you do this? Elizabeth was suffering! She was in so much pain and torment! And you just left her like that for the rest of her life!"

The Doctor took a deep breath. "Elizabeth may be brilliant," he said, "but she doesn't know how to create a device that runs off temporal radiation."

"But… she built one," said Willow.

"Yes, she did," said the Doctor. "And by 2003, she will build one as big as the town of Sunnydale. One that will kill 38,000 people. There's only one person I know of that would have that kind of temporal engineering knowledge and would be that obsessed with mind-controlling me. So… I couldn't fix her. I had to make sure she had the knowledge to build that future device."

"Elizabeth was right all along," Giles realized. "You have an idea of what history should be, and you ensure it stays that way. Regardless of the number of innocents you slaughter."

"The Big Bad in Elizabeth's 2003," said Xander. "It's you. Not past you. This you. Right now."

The Doctor didn't answer, but the intense sorrow in his eyes spoke volumes.

"Hang on," said Anya. "Why's it okay when _you_ screw over your ex, or wipe out a small town, but when _I_ do it, it's evil and wrong and you have to stop me? What's the difference?"

The Doctor said nothing for a few long minutes. His eyes were dark, unfocused, staring into the distance.

"There is none," he said, at last.

He turned, and unlocked the door to his TARDIS.

"Wait! Where are you going?" asked Dawn.

"To stop myself," said the Doctor, as the doors slammed shut behind him. The TARDIS wheezed into life, the light flashing as the Police Box faded out of sight.

"Um," said Xander. "He's not… really going to shove himself into a black hole or anything, right?"

Everyone shuffled their feet, guiltily. If he had, they all knew they probably should have stopped him. They'd wanted him to feel upset, not suicidal.

"He's not," said Willow, staring at the spot where the Police Box had disappeared. "I know where he went."

Everyone looked over at Willow, confused.

"Where?" asked Tara.

Willow's eyes flicked across at the others in the room — at Giles, Angel, Dawn, Xander, and Anya, all looking at her with curious, worried eyes. Her friends. Her entire world. Minus one person.

"Exactly where any of us would go," said Willow, "if we had a time machine."


	24. Coda

Coda

_December 1, 1999_

From her right, Buffy noticed the vampire, darting in and striking at her side. She feinted left, then dove into the punch, knocking the vampire back. She punched him in the jaw, and he swung back at her, dislodging her and flipping her over. She somersaulted through the air, landing on her feet, and staked the vamp through the heart.

Another one to her left, just rounding the mausoleum. She ducked his blow, then tried to strike out at him, but he charged at her, knocking her back into a gravestone, which tumbled down to the ground. Buffy jumped back onto her feet, faking the vampire out and darting in for the kill. He dusted beneath her stake.

Movement behind her. Buffy swung around, and stopped herself two inches from the guy's heart. She pulled the stake behind her back, and dropped it onto the ground. "Oh, um. Hi, Doctor."

The man she was facing was tall, skinny, with spiky brown hair and a pinstripe suit. He raised an inquisitive eyebrow at her. "Busy night?"

"What? Me? No, of course not," said Buffy. She sighed. "Okay, yeah, I was killing vampires. But you know what? They're evil, soulless things and I don't have mythical, magical blood that will turn them human again. I'm just trying to protect innocent people."

The Doctor said nothing.

"And I don't have to justify myself to you, anyways," said Buffy. "I mean, it's not like I'm doing anything wrong, and it's not like you're my Watcher. You're just some alien who pops into my life, every so often, and starts lecturing me about how vampires are people and I have to give them a chance before I drive a stake through their hearts, or I'm going to go nuts and get all evil and kill-happy, and — you're not at all okay, are you?"

The Doctor tried to paste his best innocent look on his face. "Course I am."

"Usually by now, you're going on at me at about five hundred words per second, either about how killing things is wrong or about how you definitely were trying to land here and not in the year five million AD," said Buffy. "But you're just standing there, staring at me. So what's wrong?"

The Doctor's eyes darted around, as if trying to find the best avenue for escape. Then they fixed on Buffy. He grinned — almost convincingly, Buffy thought. "Nothing!" he said. "Just here to see you. Very good to drop in. How are you?"

Buffy frowned. "You… dropped in?" she asked. "To see me? You're not lost, or trying to stop some evil monster, or trying to save the universe?"

"Well, thought I'd catch up, spend some time with friends," said the Doctor.

"Oh, my God," said Buffy. "You're… you're dying or something!"

"No!" said the Doctor. He raised his hands. "Absolutely fine. Told you."

Buffy hesitated, but touched his hand. It felt normal. Cool to the touch. So no regenerative energy. She felt for his pulse at his wrist, and that felt normal, too. She brushed some hair out of her eyes, and looked up at him. "You're not dying."

"Course not!" said the Doctor. "No one's dying. Absolutely no one. No one at all." He grinned at her, but it seemed like a smile that had been cut out of a magazine and pasted on. "And how have you been?"

"Okay," said Buffy. "I mean, not cave-womanny or anything. I… um, you have gotten to that part, right?"

"Nope."

"Right," said Buffy. "Then, just… forget about that. Or, actually, when you get there, then you can forget it, too, because it was a mistake and, um… can we forget I even brought it up?"

And, oh, no, because the Doctor was usually the one rambling and trying to get her off of awkward topics, and instead he was just looking at her as if everything terrible had just crashed on top of his head. This was taking not okay to a new level. Buffy was now considering stealing his TARDIS key and making sure he stayed put for a little while, just to ensure he didn't do anything stupid like throw himself into a supernova.

The Doctor, faster than Buffy could even register, turned and swept her into a tight hug. Buffy could feel his two hearts beating rapidly in his chest. What the hell had happened to him? And why had he come to Sunnydale — of all places — to get past it?

After a few seconds, Buffy pulled away. She looked up into his eyes, and she knew that whatever was going on, she had to fix it. She had to make him better. Because watching him like this — this shattered and broken — it was killing her.

"Stay," she said.

And she knew things were very, very wrong, because he agreed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Stay tuned! There is still way more to this Coda.


	25. Chapter 25

They walked back to the campus, Buffy not really sure what to say. If she had some idea of what the problem was — but he wasn't ever going to tell her something like that. He was never going to tell her anything like that. In a way, the Doctor never really told her anything at all.

"I… have a new boyfriend, now," she said, mainly because she didn't know what else to say.

The Doctor didn't answer her.

Buffy tucked her hands into her jeans pockets. "Yep," she said. "He's… Riley. That's his name. His name's Riley."

"Ah. Riley."

Buffy looked over at the Doctor. "You've met him?"

"Day I met him," said the Doctor, "he tried to kill me."

Buffy's eyes grew wide. "Wait, what?"

The Doctor glanced over at her. "Don't worry," he said. "He'll have a good reason." He frowned. "An extremely good reason. You'll think so, too, when it happens."

"Okay, seriously, what is wrong with you?" Buffy asked.

The Doctor said nothing, just looked down at the ground.

Stupid Buffy. She'd just gone and screwed it all up, hadn't she? Because now, the Doctor had this look on his face that said, _Everything's wrong with me, I'm the worst person in the world and you should hate me_. Buffy hated it when he got like that. She had enough people in her life telling her that the Doctor was evil, without her having him lay it on himself. She liked him better when he was in one of his good moods, when he was bouncing off the walls and trying to convince her that tricking vampires into killing themselves was completely different from staking vampires through the heart (Buffy didn't believe a word of it), or explaining to her the different ways to bake in zero gravity, or something or other. But he'd never shown up looking quite this bad, before.

"Was it the Daleks?" Buffy asked. Because usually, bad things in Doctor-land had Dalek written all over them.

"No," said the Doctor. "Well, yes, but that was… a while back, for me."

"So what…?"

The Doctor glanced up at the sky. "It's your birthday, isn't it?"

Way to change the topic. Buffy hugged her arms. "In about a month," she said.

The Doctor considered. "Almost got it right." He glanced over at her. "Happy birthday."

"You could drop in for my actual birthday, too," Buffy offered. "That way, when the annual birthday calamity happens, you can help me clear up the dead bodies."

The Doctor raised an eyebrow.

"And… and you'd get to be all heroic and stuff!" Buffy added. "That's something you like."

The Doctor's face fell.

"Or I could do the heroics!" Buffy said. "And you could just sit around drinking banana daiquiris or something. I just… please come. Please. Everything's always better when you're around."

"The moment I show up, death and destruction follow," the Doctor warned her. "The worst monsters. The most terrible tragedies. The end of the world."

"That stuff happens all the time in Sunnydale, whether you're here or not," said Buffy.

"I make it worse."

Okay, that was actually sort of true. Because the Doctor usually wound up unearthing some terrible thing that no one had ever noticed, and then the badness just piled up around him. A world-ending disaster turned into a universe-ending disaster. Normal Big Bads tried to use the Doctor to become time-travelling Big Bads. And Buffy knew she should probably care about that.

If it was anyone else, maybe she would.

Buffy took the Doctor's hand in hers. "I guess… it's not everything that's better, when you're around. Just me." She looked up at him. "But that's enough."

The Doctor stopped walking. His eyes were fixed straight ahead, but there was a look on his face, as if he were not looking with his eyes at all, as if his brain were reaching out and trying to touch something. Buffy looked around, and spotted two guys strolling along the sidewalk, some ways away. The Doctor's head snapped towards them, his eyes following their every movement. He seemed wary, guarded.

Which meant they were either monsters, aliens, vampires, or former companions that he didn't want to run into.

The Doctor took Buffy's hand, and started to walk away, at a hurried pace. Okay, that would probably mean former companions. Buffy didn't really know all that many of the Doctor's companions, but she knew that, usually, if he was avoiding someone, it was for a reason.

The two guys were following them.

The Doctor began to walk faster, his hand squeezing hers. His eyes were fixed forwards, his jaw set. Okay, maybe they weren't companions. Maybe they were student loan officers or something. Because if they were vampires, the Doctor would be doing his usual thing of playing them up so that they did something stupid. And he wasn't doing that.

Then he started to run.

They ran about three blocks, before Buffy managed to stop him. She yanked him by the arm, and made him face her. "What is going on?"

The Doctor didn't say anything, for a second. Then: "Don't kill them."

The two guys approached, skulking through the shadows towards them. Their faces morphed into evil, wrinkly vampire faces, their eyes fixed on the Doctor. They were sniffing, and Buffy realized they could probably smell him a mile away. Vampires sometimes went crazy when a Time Lord was around — Buffy knew that.

"I have to—" Buffy started.

"Don't."

Buffy tried to charge forwards, but the Doctor caught her by her stake-holding hand, and twisted her out of the way. Buffy tried again, but he caught her arm and flipped her, heavily, against the brick wall to her left. It actually stung a little bit. He'd… hurt her. Not a lot, but… it was the principle of the thing that mattered.

The Doctor stepped forward, and faced the vampires, a dark, dangerous expression on his face.

"Leave," he told them, in a quiet, yet deadly voice.

The vampires just laughed at him. They started taunting him, jeering at him, but it was as if he didn't even hear them. He let their comments wash over him.

And then, time seemed to blur around her, and something happened — something so quick, so crazy, so out-of-time-ish that Buffy couldn't actually figure out what — and, next thing Buffy knew, both vampires were dust, and the Doctor was standing where they had once been, Buffy's own wooden stake in his hand.

Buffy got up, and walked over to where he stood, in the moonlight, his shoulders slumped and his face completely blank.

She put a hand on his shoulder. "You… didn't give them a chance," she said. "You didn't let them kill themselves."

"No difference, anyways," he said, without facing her. He stared at the stake in his hand. "No reason to bother doing things right. Not after what I've done. What I'm going to do."

"What are you going to do?" asked Buffy.

"Wonder what sets me off this time," said the Doctor. "Now that everything's different. Now that the future's changed. Wonder what'll make me do it. Wonder…" He glanced over his shoulder at Buffy, and as his eyes met hers, she could see a chasm of empty sadness in their depths, a longing sort of sorrow that ate away at him from the inside out.

Buffy wasn't sure how much longer she could meet his eyes before she broke apart as well.

"I'm through with feeling guilty," said the Doctor, his voice barely above a whisper. "I'm through with second chances. I'm…" He dropped the wooden stake onto the ground, and turned to face Buffy. "I'm through."

And Buffy had been worried, before, really and truly worried. But this was the first time this evening that Buffy felt scared.

* * *

"He's just staying for a little while," Buffy told Willow. She handed her a small, Yale key on a string. "Hold this."

They were out in the hallway, trying to talk in hushed voices so that neither the Doctor nor anybody else would overhear.

Willow raised up the key. "But isn't this—?"

"I can't risk him running off," said Buffy. "Something is seriously wrong with him. I think… I think he's given up."

Willow was new to the whole Doctor-being-the-good-guy thing, but she knew it was important to Buffy, and anything that was important to Buffy was important to her, too.

"Given up what, exactly?" asked Willow.

"Everything," said Buffy. "Nothing. I don't know. I just… he's broken, Will. I have to fix him."

"Well, what if you can't fix him?" Willow asked. "I mean, you said his home planet was destroyed and he's the only one of his species left in the universe. I don't think an Intro to Psych class is going to be enough to fix that kind of psychological trauma!"

"He came here for a reason," said Buffy. "He wouldn't be here if he didn't think there was something we could do for him."

"What, you mean, like, magic stuff?" Willow asked.

"I don't know," said Buffy. "Usually when he's all guilt-trippy and depressed, he looks for some big evil monsters to outsmart, and that makes him feel better, but… he ran away from those vampires on the way here. And when he did face them, he didn't try to outsmart them or make them better, he just… dusted them." Buffy brushed some hair out of her face. "I don't think he's here for monsters or magic or anything. I think he's here for something else."

"You?" asked Willow.

"What? No! Of course not!" Buffy said. "I… if he'd wanted to, you know, take any of that further, he wouldn't have come while I was still in a relationship. Maybe he just needs a friend."

That wasn't what Willow had meant, of course. Because Buffy couldn't see it, but she was more than just another girl. She was Buffy. She was like a shining light of hope to those who could see it. She was the inspiration, the determination, and everything that was good and true in the world. Willow could see that, and she thought the other Scoobies could as well. And if the Doctor could see it — well, that would explain why he'd come to Buffy, specifically, when he was in trouble.

"Maybe he's lost faith in humanity," Willow clarified. "And he wants to see someone really, really good to show him that humanity's worth it, again."

Buffy scoffed. "And he came to Sunnydale, center of all things evil and Hellmouthy?" she asked. She shook her head. "No, it's something else. I just… I have to work it out. Work out what happened." She stared down the hallway. "What could possibly make him shut down like that?"

"It's probably nothing," said Willow.

Buffy gave her friend a pointed look.

"Or it could be the end of the universe," Willow amended.

Buffy sighed. "I better go make sure that Riley doesn't drop by. I think that would be a really bad idea right now."

"You afraid Riley's going to get jealous?" asked Willow, with a little smile.

"Apparently," said Buffy, "the day the Doctor meets Riley, Riley's going to try to kill him."

The smile fell off Willow's face. "Really?"

"So he says."

Willow glanced back at the door to their dorm room. "Okay, seriously," she said. "What's with him and your boyfriends? This is the second time, now, that you've had a boyfriend that tried to kill the Doctor."

"At least with Angel, the Doctor didn't think he deserved to be killed," said Buffy. "This time… I'm pretty sure he thinks Riley was right. Will be right. Whatever." She sighed. "Just… I don't know how suicidal he is right now, but don't give him Aspirin, even if he asks you for it. It's poison for him."

"Buffy, I'm not the best person to be all cheerful and talking-out-of-suicide and stuff," said Willow. "I mean, I'm sort of… you know. Damaged goods."

"You're not… Willow, you're wonderful and amazing," said Buffy. "Just because Oz was a jerk doesn't make you damaged goods."

Willow grumbled.

"I'm not asking you to cheer him up," said Buffy. "Just keep him here, and make sure he doesn't kill himself."

Willow fidgeted with the hem of her t-shirt, staring at the ground. "I can try," she conceded.

Buffy smiled, then ran off to make sure Riley stayed far, far away.


	26. Chapter 26

Willow went into the dorm room. The Doctor was perched on the floor, his back leaning against the side of Buffy's bed, one leg bent, his arm draped across his knee. He stared at the corner of Willow's coverlet, a somber expression on his face.

His eyes flicked up to Willow. They seemed… curious. Not suicidal, Willow thought. Maybe Buffy was just exaggerating.

"So," she said, trying to put on her cheerful-Willow-smile face. "Buffy says you'll be staying for a few days."

The Doctor raised an eyebrow at her. "Suppose so," he said. "If that's what she wants." His eyes dropped to Willow's clenched fist. "And I'm guessing you won't give me back my key until she tells you to."

Willow hid the fist clenching the key behind her back. "Um, that's just… nothing," said Willow. "I mean, it's something, but it's not…. Tea!" She bolted over to the hot-water heater. "All English people like tea. Not that you're English or anything, but, I mean, you sort of sound English, and that's…"

"Tea would be lovely."

"Good!" said Willow. She crammed the TARDIS key into her pants pocket, and started to boil some water in the water heater. She turned, when she realized the Doctor was staring at her. She shifted, awkwardly, playing with the sleeve of her shirt. "What?"

"Nothing, you just look… different," said the Doctor.

"Well, I cut my hair," said Willow. "Or… maybe not, because I don't know when the last time you saw me was. But… that's not even remotely what you're talking about, so I guess I'll just be quiet now."

The Doctor gave a small laugh. "I like your hair short," he said. "And it's good to see you… happy."

Willow's jaw nearly hit the floor. Happy? Happy? She felt like her heart had been ripped out of her chest and stomped on. She'd never been less happy than this in her entire life!

"I'm not happy," said Willow, slumping down onto the ground, across from him. "I'm miserable."

The Doctor quirked an eyebrow at her.

"It's just… how could Oz do something like that?" Willow asked. "He just went out and slept with her, and then he… left! And I didn't care that he was a werewolf, and I didn't care about any of it, but he… how could he leave me?" She struggled to stop herself from crying.

"Did he hurt you?" asked the Doctor.

"Of course he hurt me!" said Willow. "I can't even sleep at night without thinking of him. I can't get past this. It hurts too much to move, sometimes."

The Doctor said nothing for a very long moment. When he did speak, it was so soft that Willow almost didn't catch it. "Do you want to kill him?" he asked her. "For hurting you that way?"

Willow pouted. "No, I couldn't even harm him," she said, folding her arms and staring at the floor. "I tried, because I was so mad, and I just… couldn't do it. Veruca was right. I'm just a weak, stupid, useless piece of nothing."

"You're remarkable," the Doctor corrected. "A truly remarkable human being."

Willow looked up at him, and she realized he was looking at her with a detached sort of awe in his eyes.

"Do I really terrify you?" he asked.

Willow wanted to jump at this. How'd he known? And what should she say? Because the answer to that was, yes! He did. All the time. Because he might look all normal and human and stuff most of the time, but Willow had seen him when he wasn't, and he was scary. He was really scary.

"No," she lied.

The Doctor nodded, slowly. "I'm sorry," he told her. "About… everything. So, so sorry."

"I'm sick of people telling me they're sorry," said Willow. "I just want this pain to go away. I just want it to stop."

"No, you don't."

Willow pounded the ground with her fist. "Who are you to tell me what I want or don't want?" she demanded. "You're not the alien boss of me. You're just… some stupid skinny guy with a time machine, and you have no idea what I'm going through right now!"

The moment the words came out of her mouth, she regretted them. She wanted to hit the magic "Willow undo" command, to take it all back, but unfortunately, time didn't have a control z.

The Doctor didn't seem to notice. He just stared off into the distance. "That's why they did it," said the Doctor. "The Cybermen. The Daleks. All those races that gave it all up. No more emotions. They're too hard. They hurt. But give it up, and you're left with nothing." His voice sounded hollow, empty. "Nothing at all."

Willow sagged. "I knew this was a bad idea," she said. "I'm not going to be able to cheer you up. I mean, you obviously don't really want to talk to me, anyways. You came here for Buffy, and instead you got me, and I'm not really all that good a listener, and I've got all these other problems right now and… I couldn't even convince Oz not to leave me, so how am I supposed to convince you of anything?"

The Doctor gave a dry laugh. "Oh, Willow," he said. "Eight hours of interrogation, and she couldn't break me. Three words from you, and I knew the truth."

Willow blinked. "Wait, what?"

"Nothing," he said. "You're brilliant, though. After all this is done, just remember that. A truly remarkable and brilliant human being."

Willow fidgeted in her seat. After all this is done? What was that supposed to mean? "After all what is done?" she asked.

The Doctor said nothing for a few long moments. "It's a nice little dorm room you have, here," he said.

"Huh?"

"I shouldn't have come," he said. "But I had to. It's what I deserve. For everything that's going to happen. Everything that's already happened. I just want you to know — it's not Buffy's fault. She has to do it. After this is done, tell her I don't blame her for any of it."

"What?" asked Willow. "Doctor, what are you talking about? This isn't… you don't think I think you're evil, right? Because that whole slapping thing — that was just nothing. I mean, it wasn't nothing. But it wasn't something. And… that stuff I said over the summer — I didn't mean those things, either. Well, I did, but I don't anymore. And… you haven't actually lived through any of that, yet, have you?"

"No."

"Did I just do a bad thing?" asked Willow. "Telling you about your future?"

"Not mine yet," said the Doctor. "Just a potential temporal probability. Future can be rewritten. Future can be unwritten." He sighed. "People can die too soon, and things can change."

"What do you mean?" asked Willow.

"My future, for instance, only happens," said the Doctor, "if I'm alive to be there. All you're remembering now is the most likely outcome of what I'll do. If I were to die right here, right now, then poof. Gone. New future, new past. You wouldn't even remember it had been any different. Not unless you were a Time Lord."

Willow held the mug, nervously, with both hands. "Well, but you're not going to die," she said. "Right?"

"Do you want me to?" asked the Doctor.

"No!" said Willow. "I… I don't think I ever really wanted you to die. Not even when I thought you were evil. Not that I think you're evil now, or anything. Because you're not. You're Buffy's weird alien friend. Not remotely evil."

The Doctor met her eyes. "Is that what you think?"

There was something very intense in those eyes. Something far too intense. Yeah. Terrifying. Willow tried to get herself to think rationally and calm down. No reason to get scared. This was Buffy's friend. Buffy trusted him, right?

"Well, you haven't tried to kill anyone, yet," said Willow. "I mean, except for that one time, when you did, but Buffy says that wasn't your fault, and…"

The Doctor's entire face went completely blank, as if he were simply an empty shell, with no emotions whatsoever.

"No, I'm sorry, I didn't mean that," Willow cut in, fiddling around with the coffee cup in her hand. "I just meant, you're one of the good guys, and we're okay with you being here, and we're trying to make you comfortable, and—"

"Do you know why they do it?" the Doctor asked.

Willow blinked. "Why who do what?"

"A Dalek has to kill," the Doctor told her, "because it honestly believes that every other creature in existence deserves to die. A vampire has to kill, because it's evolved to depend on sucking the life force from other creatures. A Sontaran has to kill, because they are cloned with that particular genetic programming in their DNA. But human beings — do you know why they do it?"

Willow tucked her hands between her knees. "Well, it depends," she said. "I mean, sometimes, it's an accident. And sometimes, it's for power. And sometimes, it's, you know, because they had a traumatic childhood when they were young. But sometimes it's just what happens."

The Doctor shook his head. "No," he told her. "That's not why. It's because of me. I make them do it."

Okay, yeah. This was way beyond Intro to Psych.

"Well, you can't be everywhere at once," said Willow. "I mean, okay, you can, because you have a time machine, but you shouldn't have to be, and… you're not God or anything. You aren't the boss of who lives and who dies."

"But when I am," said the Doctor, "everyone dies." He gave another dry laugh. "Just like she said. I offer my enemies a chance. But my friends… they never get one. They just die."

The Doctor's gaze was far sharper than Willow would have liked. It seemed to pin her in place, like she was being restrained by some evil monster who was preparing to eat her. Which was stupid, she told herself, because the Doctor didn't even eat people. So why did he scare her so much?

"Maybe you should let Buffy work this out for you," said Willow. Buffy wasn't scared of him. "Buffy will make it all better."

The Doctor took a deep breath. "I know," he said. He looked out the window, at the stars in the sky, longingly, as if… saying goodbye to old friends. No, that couldn't be the expression on his face. Willow had to be misreading that.

"Or… I could do a spell," Willow offered. She made a face. "Except… that probably wouldn't be good, because my energy's all kerflewy, and, you know."

The Doctor nodded. "How's Tara?"

Willow froze. "How do you know…?" She stopped herself. Oh, of course, it was obvious how he knew about Tara. The same way he knew about Riley. He'd been to her future. "She's fine." Willow faltered. "Did Riley really try to kill you the first time he met you?"

"First time _I_ met _him_ ," the Doctor corrected. "He knew me for a while, before that." A pensive look washed across his face — a detached, pensive look. "He tied me up, so I couldn't fight back, then tried to shoot me in the head." He tapped his temple. "Right here. He didn't think I could regenerate from a head wound like that. And he was probably right."

Willow was starting to think this not hearing about the future thing was a really, really good idea. She was pretty sure she didn't want to know what happened in the future. The future where she had long hair, and she was even more unhappy than now, and Riley shot people.

"I didn't deserve forgiveness for that," said the Doctor. "Never deserve it, when it comes. Riley knew best, in the end. Don't forgive, don't forget, and don't let the girl out of your sight for a moment — because if you do, you'll lose her forever."

"Works for guys, too," muttered Willow.

The Doctor nodded, slowly. "Yes, I know," he said. "I have been assured that all the evil in the world is caused by men." He paused. "And it turns out, it's not caused by men. It's caused by me. Fancy that."

"Wait, all evil is caused by men?" asked Willow. "You… you haven't been talking to Anya, right?"

The Doctor raised an eyebrow at Willow.

"Is that what this whole thing is about?" asked Willow. "You met Anya? Because Anya's a vengeance demon — I mean, she's not anymore, but she used to be, and she's just, you know. Anya."

"I know," said the Doctor. "Manipulation of time and space and matter in order to cause chaos and devastation. In the old days, we would have put a stop to it. But now…" he shrugged.

"We?" asked Willow. Then she worked it out. "Oh, yeah. Right. You we, not, you know, we we."

"I suppose it's up to you lot, now," the Doctor said. "Slayers and Torchwood and UNIT and all that. No other Time Lords." He leaned his head back against the bed. "No place in the universe for Time Lords anymore."

"Wait, hang on, there's still a place for you!" said Willow.

"I was born in a timeline that is locked away," said the Doctor, "on a planet that never existed, to a mother and father that were never born, in a part of the universe that's always been just empty space. I'm an anomaly, completely removed from this reality. It wouldn't even be murder, really, just… temporal cleanup. Since I shouldn't technically exist at all."

"Well, but that doesn't mean that you should be not here or anything!" Willow protested. "Okay, yeah, so you don't have a planet anymore but… you can have our dorm room."

The Doctor gave her a weak smile. One that was supposed to be reassuring, but dripped with sorrow and loneliness and devastation.

Willow knew she had to say something else comforting. But what? She was bad at this at the best of times, and right now, when her heart was torn in two, it was even harder.

"Don't worry," said Willow. "When Buffy gets back, she'll sort you out. She'll make sure you know exactly how much people want you in the universe."

The Doctor got up off the floor. "That's what I'm afraid of," he said, as he walked towards the door to the dorm room.

Willow leapt to her feet. "No, wait!" she said. "Your… the tea's not finished."

The Doctor paused, then continued walking. "You have my TARDIS key," he said. "I'm not going anywhere."

"But you are!" Willow protested. She ran over, and tried to block the door. "You… you're trying to go somewhere right now, and I don't know where, but I know Buffy said you weren't allowed to leave, so I'm not letting you leave."

The Doctor just looked at her, emotionlessly, then put two gentle hands on her shoulders, and moved her out of the way. It was a little like Buffy moving her out of the way — it wasn't trying to be imposing, but it was impossibly strong for the body in front of her.

"Tell her," said the Doctor, "I ran away."

And with that, the Doctor opened the door, and left.

Buffy only came back about a minute later, but to Willow, it felt like hours. She had no idea what she was going to tell Buffy about what had happened.

When Buffy burst through the door, she was already saying, "Okay, Willow, so Riley thinks you have some sort of weird science project thing that's invaded the room, and he can't…" Buffy cut herself off, as she noticed that Willow was alone. "Where is he?"

"Um, gone?" Willow offered.

"Yeah, I can see that!" Buffy said. "Where did he go?"

"I don't know," said Willow. "He just sort of got up and left. He said to tell you that he ran away." Willow fidgeted with the hem of her t-shirt. "I told you I wasn't going to be good at this whole cheering up thing right now."

"No, Will, not everything's always your fault, it was…" Buffy gave an exasperated sigh. "Just… what happened?"

"Well, first we started talking, and he said I looked happy," said Willow.

"He said you looked what?" Buffy asked, jaw dropping.

"Happy," said Willow. "So I was like, I'm not happy. I'm miserable. And then we began talking about emotions and stuff, and then we started talking about why people kill each other, and Anya, and then he started going on about how he didn't have a place in the universe anymore, and—"

"Okay, okay," said Buffy. "So… major depression type stuff. Did you keep him away from the Aspirin?"

Willow hesitated. She wasn't really sure how to say this. "I, um… I don't think the Doctor wants to kill himself," she said, very quietly.

Relief washed across Buffy's face. "Good," she said. "Very good."

"Well, no, not good," said Willow. "I mean, the thing is, he kept talking about how he makes people die, and then how we sort of make sure that bad things get punished and…" Willow swallowed. "Buffy," she said, her voice barely above a whisper. "I think he wants _you_ to kill him."


	27. Chapter 27

Buffy froze. Completely and utterly froze, like a statue. Every single facet of her expression read fear.

"Yeah," said Willow. "I told him… you'd sort him out. And he said that's what he was afraid of, and then he ran away."

"Okay, okay, okay," said Buffy. "So… he doesn't _want_ me to kill him, he just feels I _should_."

"I… guess," said Willow.

Buffy grabbed her coat. "Fine," she said. "I can deal with that. What… do you have any idea what it was he did that makes him feel that I need to kill him?"

Willow frowned, puzzling over her last conversation. "He mentioned someone," Willow remembered. "Someone who interrogated him for eight hours. Yeah. 'Eight hours and she couldn't break me'. That's what he said. It sort of sounded like she convinced him that pretty much everything in the universe was his fault."

And then the Doctor had mentioned some other stuff about Willow that Willow really didn't want to think about. About her future. Her own future. Willow didn't want to know what was in her own future. It wasn't sounding all that great right now.

"She?" asked Buffy. "Who's she?"

Willow shrugged.

"You said he mentioned Anya," said Buffy. "Could that be the 'she'?"

"It doesn't really sound like something Anya would do," said Willow.

"No," said Buffy. "You're right." She slumped against the door frame. "But it wouldn't just be torture and interrogation and stuff. He's super stubborn. To get like this, there has to be something else. Something that happened to prove 'she' was right."

"I think," said Willow, "I mean, I don't know, but I think… someone died. One of his companions or something. And he blames himself for her death."

Buffy frowned. "I know he blames himself for Rose," she said. "But she's still alive. And then Martha's still alive. Although something happened to her that he blames himself for. And then…" she paused. "He blames himself for all of them, doesn't he?"

"He sort of… said something like that," said Willow.

Buffy shrugged her coat on, then turned back to Willow. "Okay. I better go and see if I can find him. He mentioned Anya — so call her up, ask her if she's ever vengeance-demoned the Doctor anytime in the past."

"Or maybe he's out looking for Anya right now," said Willow, "because he's feeling so guilty, he's decided he deserves to be vengeance-demoned, and he's looking for someone to curse him. Even if she's human, now, she's probably got friends who aren't."

"With him in this mood, I could see him doing that," said Buffy. She hit her head against the door. "Okay. Okay. If I manage to get him back here… I don't know… find some way to put him to sleep or something."

"You want me to drug him?" asked Willow.

"Just a little!" Buffy protested. "We need to make sure he doesn't run off, again. Which means it's either drugged tea or… I don't know… chained up in here, I guess."

"We don't have a bathtub like Giles," said Willow.

"So I'll chain him to the bed!" Buffy snapped, as she walked out the door.

Willow stared at where Buffy had just been standing, a few seconds earlier. Huh. Chained to the bed. Talk about a Freudian slip.

That was definitely Intro to Psych material!

* * *

Never had Angel's words about the Doctor being dangerous rung so true. Buffy just kept remembering what Angel had told her — why Elizabeth had stopped the Doctor from killing him in 1898. Elizabeth had been afraid. Afraid of the Doctor. Afraid that, once the Doctor started, he'd never be able to stop.

Well, it looked like the Doctor had started.

Granted, so far it had just been demon corpses that Buffy had been seeing, along with a few keepsakes from some vampires she'd been hunting for a while. But then she saw the bound and gagged group of thugs struggling to break free, a knife flung, carelessly, onto the ground a ways away. Buffy picked it up. There was blood on it. Human blood. She looked back at the thugs. The leader of the thugs had a long, bloody gash in the side of his throat. Not deep enough to be fatal, or even take that long to heal, but enough to tell Buffy one thing.

The Doctor had thought about it. He'd seriously considered killing them.

But he hadn't. He hadn't done it. That was the important thing. The Doctor hadn't gone from monster killing to human killing. And the more she told herself he wouldn't do that, the more she kept remembering…

 _Where does it stop?_ the Doctor had said to her, when she'd first met him. _Those without souls? Because there are plenty of humans who are evil, despicable, and soulless. You planning to murder them in cold blood as well?_

If, in his mind, there was so little difference between monsters and evil human beings…

 _Do you really think he wouldn't, Buffy?_ Angel had asked her.

Buffy didn't want to think about that. She didn't want to think about what she'd have to do if she found out he really had gone off the deep end. And, yeah, she'd met him in his own future, and she knew he wasn't evil, then, but — he'd said the future had changed, right? Buffy didn't know what that meant, but she wasn't sure just causing a regeneration would be enough to change him back, if he really had turned evil.

A vampire darted out of the shadows to her left, but it wasn't interested in her. No, it had its nose in the air, sniffing eagerly, its eyes almost glowing in anticipation. Buffy knew good-sniffs from bad-sniffs, and this was definitely a bad-sniff. This was an _I smell a Time Lord_ sniff.

Although, all things considered, that was good for Buffy, because the vampire knew where to find the Doctor, and Buffy's Slayer senses might tell her whether or not the Doctor was around, but they weren't very useful in terms of tracking where he was.

The vampire skulked off into the night, Buffy following it, stealthily. It kept going, its pace increasing, faster and faster as it approached…

Oh.

Buffy followed the vampire into the burnt-out husk of her old school, the burnt-out halls looking even creepier in the dark shadows of night. And she thought she knew where they were going, even if she didn't understand why.

Sure enough, the vampire nearly sprinted for the burnt-out library, its face in a wrinkly snarl, its eyes glowing yellow in the darkness. Buffy grabbed a stake out of her pocket, and threw it perfectly through his heart. The vampire cried out, and turned to dust, only steps away from the solitary figure, sitting on the ashy floor.

He looked over at her, and even though it was so dark, they could see one another through the moonlight that leaked into the building.

"You do realize this whole building is sort of kerblewy now, right?" Buffy asked.

"You killed for me," the Doctor said.

Buffy took a step forwards. "I saved your life," said Buffy. "That's not the same thing."

"Why?"

"Well, killing for you sort of implies more of a hit-man job," said Buffy, "and saving your life is more like—"

"Not that."

"You mean why did I save your life?" asked Buffy.

"Why did you kill for me?" asked the Doctor, jumping to his feet. "What makes humans do these things for me? Killing yourselves? Killing others? I never want you to do it. I never want…" He began walking towards her, his eyes fixed on hers. "Martha almost ended the world because of me. My double committed genocide because of me. Iphidrin, Karanon and Fortupin were massacred in bloodbaths because of me. Donna. River. Astrid, Jabe, Katarina, and all the rest, all the others that died for me. Killed themselves for me. Because of me. Always, always because of me."

"That's not—"

"So why?" the Doctor demanded. "Why'd you do it? What was it this time? What am I doing that makes you humans want to kill? What am I doing that makes you humans die?" He stopped right in front of Buffy, his eyes blazing. "Just tell me, Buffy!" he shouted. "Just tell me why!"

A surge of anger and loss and pain blasted her the moment he said her name.

Buffy said nothing for a long moment. "What happened to you?"

But he wasn't going to answer that question. Buffy knew he wasn't going to answer that question. She'd known it from the moment she'd asked. He turned, and walked back to the large crack in the middle of the room, the crack that lay just above the Hellmouth. He stood beside it, just staring at it.

"What am I doing to make humans act like that?" he asked. "What am I?"

Buffy took a hesitant step forwards. "You're the Doctor," she told him. "You make people better."

"I make people die," the Doctor corrected. "She said so. Over and over again. Don't even need to touch them. Just talk. One word from me, and humans kill themselves. One word from me, and even the most peaceful human can be turned into a murderer."

"Well, that's bull," said Buffy. "You don't make people into killers. If they're killing stuff now, they probably were already psychopaths before they met you."

"You weren't," the Doctor told her. He looked over his shoulder. "Not until I made you the Slayer."

Buffy didn't really know what to say to that. She wanted to tell him that no, it wasn't his fault — except it sort of was. He'd let those Shadow Whatevers create the Slayer in the first place, hadn't he? He'd gone back in time, and let them create her. And Buffy couldn't say she was happy about that, because she wasn't.

But where was the use in placing blame? The Doctor had done what he'd thought was right, what needed to be done for the Earth. And it wasn't like there was anything Buffy could do about it, now.

Besides, the truth was, Buffy had sort of come to terms with her fate and her destiny more after she met the Doctor. And he had a lot to do with that. Whenever she felt frustrated or angry about being the Slayer, whenever she wanted to shout at the world to smite the person who'd done this to her… well, she couldn't. Not anymore.

The Doctor gave a dry laugh. "You see?" he asked. "She was right. Eight hours, and I didn't want to admit it. But she was right. All along. Right about everything."

"Who was right?" Buffy asked. "What happened?"

The Doctor stared at a ceiling beam that hung across the roof of the burnt-out library, the moonlight shining dark shadows across his face. "Do you know who I am?" he asked. "Do you know who I really am?"

Buffy said nothing.

"I am the universe's worst nightmare," said the Doctor. "The origin of evil. The creator of all things terrible and deadly. I destroy everything and everyone I touch, I trick and lie and deceive to get what I want. I destroyed my own home, I've committed genocide multiple times, and I don't know if I'll ever stop. That's what I am. The greatest evil this universe has ever known." His eyes flicked down into the Hellmouth. "I deserve to be down there. Caged for all eternity, along with the other monsters. You should throw me in. She wanted to."

Buffy sighed, and grabbed him by the back of his shirt collar, dragging him backwards. The Doctor, for a moment, was too startled to even speak.

"Oi!" he said, when he regained his voice. By then, Buffy had already dragged him back outside. "What are you doing?"

Buffy threw him onto the pavement. "You want me to cage you and beat you up, because it'll make you feel better? Is that why you came here? Or are you just here to convince yourself that you're worse than every monster that ever crawled out of Hell?"

The Doctor said nothing.

"Because I'm good at beating people up!" Buffy snapped at him. "And if you did manage to get stranded here, yeah, there would be a part of me that's overjoyed that you were staying. But you know what? I've faced monsters. I've fought them professionally for three years. And you're not one."

The Doctor still said nothing.

Buffy threw up her hands in the air. "Are you a total idiot?" she cried. "If I kill something that's trying to eat you, it's not because you have some crazy voodoo magic that's making me go all psycho killer. It's because I don't want you to die!"

"Perhaps you should," the Doctor said. "You're the Slayer. It's your job. Eliminate the monsters." He jumped to his feet. "Well, here I am, Buffy Summers. Just get rid of me, already."

Buffy crossed her arms. "You're angry you make your friends into killers," said Buffy, "and now you're asking me to kill you. You've got to see the irony, there."

"You wouldn't be killing me," said the Doctor. "You'd be slaying me. No different than getting rid of a vampire or a demon."

Buffy gave him a long stare, but he met it with his own.

"Just get it over with," he demanded.

Great. This was obviously going nowhere. Time for a change of tactic.

"Okay, fine," said Buffy. "So you're evil and I should slay you. All right, then. I'll do it. On one condition. You give me a really, really good reason. And I don't mean a reason like, 'I'm a monster' or 'I deserve to be in Hell' or 'I'm the origin of all evil' or anything. Because I've met the origin of all evil, and he's pretty non-corporeal at the moment." She watched him, in the moonlight, his skinny form illuminated against the sidewalk. "Go on. One reason killing you would be slaying and not murder."

The Doctor looked her right in the eye. "You slay nonhuman life forms who kill innocent humans," he said. "And I've just killed 38,000."

Buffy felt her heart sink.


	28. Chapter 28

"Oh," said Willow. She had a mug of drugged tea in her hand, although it looked like she wasn't going to need it. "He's already unconscious."

"I hit him," said Buffy. The Doctor was draped across her shoulders, and she carefully placed him down on her bed.

"Oh," said Willow. She poured the tea out into the sink.

"He was asking for it," said Buffy. "He went to our old school and told me to throw him into the Hellmouth. Then he said he just killed 38,000 innocent people."

Willow's breath caught in her throat. "What?"

Buffy looked up at Willow. "He didn't."

"How do you know that?" asked Willow. "What if he really did?"

"Because I know," said Buffy.

Willow just gave her a pointed stare, and Buffy knew she'd have to give a better reason than that.

"On his way here, he went all crazy monster-killer," Buffy told Willow. "Killing vampires and demons and basically everything evil that was on the streets. And he must have come across a group of human thug guys. Because I found them." She gave a half shrug. "He left them alive. Tied up, and gagged, but alive."

"So… you're saying that he didn't kill 38,000 innocent people," said Willow, "because he didn't kill a few humans who actually deserved it?"

"Okay, so it's not a good reason," said Buffy. "But it's the only concrete piece of evidence I've got." She took a deep breath. "Besides. I think… he's more upset about him convincing other people to do bad stuff. Not, you know. Him doing bad stuff."

"I know you've probably already considered this," said Willow, "but… he thinks vampires are people, right? What if those 38,000 people were, you know. Vampires?"

Buffy didn't say anything, just kept staring at the Doctor.

"Or… vengeance demons?" Willow offered. "I called up Anya, like you said, and she sort of freaked. Apparently, he's kind of infamous to vengeance demons. They call him the Uncreator."

Buffy wasn't really listening to Willow, anymore, though. She'd spotted something, beneath the collar of the Doctor's shirt. She pulled down his tie, and unbuttoned the top of his shirt, pushing it aside to reveal…

"Oh, God," said Willow.

Buffy didn't even have words.

Riddling the Doctor's upper body were dozens of tiny puncture wounds, all in pairs, bite marks that were only partially healed. As Buffy continued to unbutton his shirt, she could see more and more of them, so many, discoloring his skin with dull purple bruises. She reached out to touch one, by his right heart, and he gave a small groan of pain as her fingers stroked the surface of the skin. She pulled her hand away.

"If he lost that much blood, how's he still standing?" Willow asked.

"I knew he went down way too easily when I hit him," Buffy scolded herself. She ran over to get a first aid kit, and started bandaging up the puncture wounds. "He must have been half-dead this whole time, and we never noticed."

"You think this… 'she' that he was talking about… was a vampire?" asked Willow.

"Doubt it." Buffy picked up one of the Doctor's wrists, and showed Willow the faded marks of rope-burns where he had been tied up. "This wasn't just an interrogation," she said. "This was someone with a soul and a guilty conscience, who wanted to convince him he was the one responsible."

"Who would do something like that?" asked Willow.

"No idea," said Buffy. She sighed. "But if I ever find this 'she' person, I need to give her a piece of my mind."

Willow nodded. She looked the Doctor up and down. "How long do you think he'll be unconscious?" she asked.

"I have no idea," said Buffy. "I guess that means it's no sleep for Buffy tonight."

"You can have my bed," Willow offered. "I sort of have this… you know. Friend. I could sleep over with her."

"Thanks," said Buffy, "but that's not exactly the issue. If he wakes up in the middle of the night… I don't want him running off." She stared down at the rope-burned wrist. It looked like the rope had dug into his skin, as if… he'd been hanging from his bound wrists. Eight hours of interrogation, hanging from bound wrists? Vampires biting him all over? Yeah, Buffy wanted to smack whoever it was that had done this. "And I can't tie him up," she whispered.

"Well, we could take shifts," Willow offered.

Buffy gave her a small smile. "Willow," she said. "It's okay. I'll handle it."

Willow nodded, very slowly. Her eyes were still fixed on the Doctor. "Buffy," she said, after a long moment. "If… it turns out he really _did_ kill all those people… what are you going to do?"

"He didn't."

"But what if he did?" asked Willow. "What if he's flipped out and turned evil?"

Buffy said nothing for a very, very long time. Then, "I don't know."

* * *

The Doctor awoke in the middle of the night.

It took him a few seconds to register where he was. He looked around. All the lights were off, but the moon shone through the window, sprinkling silver light across the small dorm room. The dresser to his right, assorted items strewn across its surface. Willow's abandoned bed, beside him.

He tried to get up, but felt something on his chest. A weight. He looked down, and found… Buffy. The blond strands of hair tumbling across her face, waving with every slow inhale and exhale. She had taken a desk chair over to the bed, and sat beside him, presumably to watch him. However, now, she was leaning across him, her arms wrapped tightly around his chest, hugging him as if he were all she had in the world, her head resting just below his right heart.

She was asleep.

Asleep, hugging him tightly, while he was… well, it looked like she'd partially undressed him. And then bandaged up his wounds. Which wasn't exactly what she was supposed to be doing. She was supposed to be killing him.

Then again, he suppose she really shouldn't be hugging him like this when he was half-dressed, either.

Here she was. Buffy Summers. Alive, wonderful, and… so very human. So very opposite to everything he associated with Elizabeth, at the end. He'd wanted, for so long, to remember Elizabeth as she had been before she'd been destroyed, before any of the death's and the massacres. The Elizabeth that he wanted to remember, the Elizabeth without the Master, without the madness and paranoia and killing sprees — that was Buffy.

And in a year and a half, the Doctor would kill her.

The Doctor tried to get up, to extricate himself from her hold, but the moment Buffy felt him move, she frowned (in her sleep), and hugged him tighter. A bit too tight for a human being. Ah. Right. Slayer strength. Well, then. Best not move. Didn't want her to cut off his breathing and circulation.

In truth, the Doctor's mind was at war with itself. Part of it was screaming at him to run, run far away, tear himself from her and head for the hills. Yes, they had his TARDIS key, but that wasn't really any obstacle for him — considering he could open the doors with the snap of his fingers. He just… had to run. He had to get away from her, because she was going to kill him, she had to kill him, what he'd done was unforgivable, and Anya had been right, so very right, when she'd asked him what made him better than her. Nothing. Buffy would know that. Buffy would know what to do.

And he didn't want to die.

The other part of his mind just wanted… to see her. Buffy Summers. See her alive again. Hear her voice, feel her touch, enjoy that same trust and friendship they'd shared with one another. And… well, if he were going to be completely honest, he was actually enjoying this. Rather more than he thought he should. Feeling her cheek on his bare chest. Feeling her breath as it tickled across his skin. Feeling her arms around him, pulling him close, making sure he didn't leave her, making sure he didn't go. He wanted so much to feel that again — that sort of intimacy, that sort of love. He hadn't felt that in so very long.

But this wasn't love. He knew that. She was reacting in her sleep — a telepathic instinct. The telepathic instinct to hold him close, to make sure he was always there, always inside her mind, always alive and breathing. While she was asleep, that instinct would keep him alive. When she woke up, she would kill him. He'd known that from the moment he arrived.

The price for seeing her again was his own death.

Worth it.


	29. Chapter 29

Buffy woke up, and found herself looking straight into a pair of thoughtful brown eyes. Her cheek resting against a bare chest. Her arms wrapped around cool skin.

She jerked up, and looked down at herself. Phew. Okay. Fully clothed. He just… wasn't. Completely. She felt herself blushing. Because she'd had some… interesting dreams last night. And she didn't know exactly how telepathic he was, but she didn't want him to know about those.

Apparently, her imagination had really liked the idea of Doctor chained to bed.

No, bad Buffy! You've got a boyfriend, now. Riley. Not the Doctor. Doctor is your friend. Riley is your boyfriend. You love Riley (and she really did). You should be fantasizing about Riley.

(Oh, Riley plus Doctor _both_ chained to bed — no, no, bad imagination! Shut up, imagination!)

"Is it time?" asked the Doctor.

Buffy couldn't actually answer this. Mainly because now her still sleep-clouded head was swimming with Riley-Doctor-Buffy fantasies, and that was absolutely not helping her figure out what the hell he was talking about. Time? Time for what? Time to call up Riley and indulge a serious fantasy of hers? No, wait, didn't the Doctor not like Riley? Or maybe Riley didn't like the Doctor? And there was something about killing, and…

Oh.

That's right.

The Doctor had decided that Buffy was going to kill him.

That pretty much destroyed all of her fantasies right off the bat.

"It's not going to be time," said Buffy. "Ever."

The Doctor began to button up his shirt, and adjust his tie. "I gave you a reason," he said. "A good one."

"Yeah, you did."

The Doctor looked up at her. "And you said if I gave you a good reason…"

"I lied," said Buffy, crossing her arms. "Not killing you. Ever. Sorry."

The Doctor ran a hand through his hair. "Telepathic instinct," he sighed. "Should have known. That's the only reason you aren't going to kill me. You won't want to kill me when I'm about to destroy your life, either."

Buffy slapped him for that. He gave her the most adorable cute puppy face she could imagine, as he held his cheek, and she, once again, had to banish certain fantasies that she'd been dwelling on in her dreams.

"Stop trying to get me to kill you!" Buffy shouted. "I'm not going to kill you. Not now. Not ever."

Her voice seemed to echo through the still morning air.

The Doctor said nothing for a long moment. Then, in a voice barely above a whisper, "What are you going to do to me?"

And the way he said it was so resigned, so hopeless and defeated, that it seemed to drain Buffy of any happiness she had inside of her. Was he expecting her to do something to him, something terrible? Was he expecting her to lock him up forever, or torture him, or throw him in the Hellmouth, or feed him to vampires?

"Nothing," said Buffy.

"If you let me go," said the Doctor, "I'll do it again."

Buffy crossed her arms. "Yeah," she said. "Because after knowing you for so long, I absolutely believe that you're completely evil and planning to do a major massacre."

"I might be," said the Doctor. "You never know. I might be trying to end the world."

"Doctor," said Buffy. "Do you want me to kill you? Do you want to die?"

The Doctor froze. Then his eyes shifted towards the door, and Buffy knew exactly what he was going to do. He was going to run. Buffy caught him by the arm as he slid off the bed, and yanked him back towards her. He yelped, and collapsed back onto her bed.

"You don't, do you?" asked Buffy. "You think I should, but you don't actually want me to do it."

"It doesn't matter what I want," said the Doctor. "You have to do it."

"Why? Because you killed all those people?"

"Yes. And because of everything else."

"What else?" Buffy demanded. "And none of that, 'humans only die because of me' stuff. Because that's the stupidest thing I've ever heard."

"Revenge."

Buffy stared at him. Revenge? From the guy who never took revenge? He wanted her to take revenge on something? Someone? Oh. Hang on. He wanted her to take revenge on him.

For something he hadn't done, yet. (Ruining her life?)

"You have to," the Doctor told her. "Justice. Revenge. I deserve it."

"This from the same guy that keeps telling me that you don't do revenge because it's a waste of your time?" asked Buffy.

"I manipulate time and space for my own ends," said the Doctor. "I'm no better than a vengeance demon."

Buffy actually cracked up at this. She couldn't stop laughing. "Doctor, you'd be a terrible vengeance demon!" she said. "You'd be all forgiving, and never actually be able to curse any…" Her laughter fell flat, her smile dripped off her face, and all mirth drained from her as she caught his eye. His sharp, piercing gaze was one she'd seen before, when he lost his temper, when he condemned his enemies to a thoroughly vicious fate. It was his alien look, and one that reminded Buffy that this man had done things she probably couldn't dream of.

"There's a little girl locked in the mirror," said the Doctor, in a cool, detached, icy voice. "In every mirror. She tried to destroy a town, so I trapped her there. For all eternity. Never aging, never dying, never talking to another living soul. That was revenge."

Buffy wasn't sure what to say to this.

"I didn't kill Angel, in Romania," the Doctor continued. "Because death would have been too easy. I sentenced him to an eternity of self-inflicted pain and torment. That was revenge."

"That wasn't—"

"Young man named Adam Mitchell," said the Doctor. "2012. He almost killed Rose twice. So I dropped him at home with a infospike from the year 200,000 stuck in his head. Every time anyone snaps their fingers, his forehead—"

"Shut up!" Buffy shouted. She grabbed the Doctor by his shoulders, and shook him. "Stop trying to make me kill you! I'm not going to kill you! I…." she trailed off, and when she continued, her voice was far lower. "If I ever killed you, I'd hate myself forever."

The Doctor met her eyes, and that same empty chasm of sorrow was back in those brown irises, that same look that made Buffy feel like she was going to break apart the longer she looked at him.

"The 38,000 people," said Buffy. "Was that revenge?"

"No," said the Doctor. "That was… me. Being selfish. They died for no reason, and I killed them."

Buffy took a long, deep breath. She didn't know if this was actual fact, or if this was one more thing that 'she' convinced him was his fault. Buffy suspected the latter. Buffy suspected 'she' was the one who really killed those 38,000 humans.

"Doctor," Buffy said, softly, "why are you really here?"

The Doctor's eyes widened, a hint of fear sparking inside of them. "Had to do it."

"Kill those people?"

"See you."

Buffy loosened her grip on his arm. "What?"

"Knew you'd have to kill me," said the Doctor. "Or… worse. What with, you know. Slayer and all. Just… couldn't help myself, I suppose. Had to come."

"Why?"

"Because you're you."

"Huh?"

For just a second, there was a burst of something bright in the Doctor's eyes, a burst of something happy and beautiful just like Buffy remembered from every other time she saw him.

"You know what I am, what I've done, how many people I've killed," said the Doctor. "And for some reason, you still don't hate me."

Well, yeah. Because Buffy knew he _didn't_. Because she knew he was a guilt-trippy alien who liked to blame himself for the world and the universe and pretty much everything else bad that ever happened. Because she knew that his soul was made of sunlight and his mind sang with something too pure to be monstrous or demonic. Because she'd seen him mourn over men and monsters alike, because she'd seen him rush off to help people without caring about the risks.

He could pretend to be a monster. He could pretend to be the worst evil in the universe. But Buffy had seen his soul.

And that was something he couldn't fake.

"I'm not going to hate you," said Buffy. "Ever."

It was as if those words, themselves, were enough to stir something inside of him. Some spark of emotion and caring and feeling that Buffy had thought he'd buried too deep down inside to ever get out. He swept her into a tight, desperate hug, one that she returned whole-heartedly. And it was enough to bring a flush to her cheeks, when she realized that the Doctor was still sitting on her bed, and his suit jacket and trench coat were still off, and he was — for him, at least — extremely underdressed.

And she really, really shouldn't like that this much.

The Doctor pulled away, suddenly. A fearful expression on his face.

"Why?" he asked.

Buffy felt her heart skip a beat. Had he just picked up on her stray thoughts? "Why what?"

"Why don't you hate me?"

Okay, and this was one of those moments where, if this was a Hollywood movie, Buffy would respond by kissing him passionately, and he would kiss her passionately, and then he'd be all better and everything would go back to normal.

Except this was real life. And Buffy had a boyfriend.

"Because you'd give up your life for a stranger," said Buffy. "Because the only thing that will bring you out of a healing coma is to whisper the words, 'help me'. Because you're stubborn enough to think you can save vampires, and because you think that even the worst monsters deserve a chance to make themselves better. Because when I look beneath the surface, at what you really are, I know. You're not God. You're not the devil. You're just… a person. You make mistakes, you lie, you run away when you really shouldn't, and you're forced into situations you can't control. But that doesn't matter. In the end, you're my friend." She gave him a friendly smile. "And life would be seriously sucky if you weren't around."

The Doctor just stared at her, completely speechless. Which was a definite change.

"And if I killed you, it wouldn't be Slaying," Buffy added. "It would be murder. And I don't do murder."

"She said I talked her into it," said the Doctor. "Talked her into loving me. Magic voice."

"Who?" asked Buffy.

The Doctor didn't answer.

Buffy sighed. "If you really had a magic voice," she said, "don't you think that all those evil monsters you tell to get it together and shape up would actually do it?"

The Doctor frowned. Buffy could see she'd just made a very good point.

"I still kill people," the Doctor said. "Everyone I'm close to. Every friend I've ever had. The moment they meet me, they might as well be signing their own death certificates."

"Did 'she' tell you that, too?" asked Buffy.

The Doctor looked at her, and there was such raw pain in his eyes, such terrible lonely sadness inside, that she nearly shattered right then and there. He looked like he was screaming inside his head, like he was barely holding himself together.

"She didn't have to," said the Doctor.

And that was obviously what had really set him off. What had really convinced him he was a monster. Someone he knew had died, and that loss was destroying him. Buffy was guessing this 'she' person had probably had something to do with that friend's death.

"Have you ever thought," said Buffy, "that maybe this 'she' person was just lying to you? Maybe she was just trying to pin the blame for her own mistakes on you?"

"Then why was she right?" the Doctor demanded. "She shouldn't have been right. She shouldn't… why did it happen? It shouldn't have happened! It can't have happened!"

"What happened?" Buffy coaxed.

The Doctor lay on the bed, his eyes fixed on the ceiling. "I don't understand," he whispered. "It doesn't make sense."

"You said… something about the future," Buffy offered.

The Doctor said nothing.

"Did… someone die?" asked Buffy. "In the future? One of your friends?"

The Doctor sat up, and caught Buffy's arm in a strong grip. There was nothing gentle about it — he seemed to be clinging to her as if everything in the world depended on it. "Come with me."

"I can't," said Buffy.

"You have to," said the Doctor. "Please. I need you."

"I've got to stay here and save the world," said Buffy. "The only other Slayer is Faith, and she's sort of comatose. And evil." And the moment Buffy went away with the Doctor, she wasn't really sure she'd ever want to come back. "I can't run away from my life."

"I need you to," said the Doctor, staring deep into her eyes. "I need you to leave here and never, ever come back. Please. Please. Come with me."

Okay, then. Looks like he wasn't planning on taking her back, either. Was that why he thought he was evil? Because he wanted to steal her away from her boyfriend and run through the universe with her? Because he wanted her to shirk her duty and be with him instead?

"Are you planning to kidnap me?" asked Buffy.

The Doctor loosened his grip, and pulled his hand away. "No."

"Good!" said Buffy. "See? That proves it. You're not evil."

The Doctor quirked an eyebrow at her.

"Doctor, I heard your 'I'm becoming evil' rant," said Buffy. "I know all the signs to look out for." She counted off on her fingers. "One, you'd tear apart the universe to get Rose back. Two, you'd wipe out basically everything that ever looked at you funny. Three, you'd wipe out everything that ever looked at any of your friends funny. Four, you'd completely shatter the universe and rewrite it so that your friends never died and you'd be the supreme ruler of everything. Five…" Buffy faltered, nearly losing her courage to continue. "You'd take me away and make sure I never left you," she whispered.

The Doctor's forehead creased, as he contemplated this. "Did I really say that bit about wanting to rule the universe?"

"Yep," said Buffy. Trust him to ignore the awkward part.

"Blimey," he said. "I sound more and more like the Master every day."

"Huh?" asked Buffy.

"Other Master," said the Doctor. "The one who…" He scratched the back of his neck, but didn't go on. He just stared off into the distance. "You won't come with me? Even if I promise to take you back?"

"Doctor," said Buffy, taking both his hands in hers, "if I went with you, I don't think I'd ever want to come back." She took a long, shaky breath. "The thing is… if I ever turned evil, I don't think I'd want to let you go, either. I'd be selfish. Keep you here forever. Lock you up and make sure you couldn't leave."

And it was funny, in a completely depressing way, that even though they were both drawn to one another and didn't want to let each other go, the only thing keeping them apart was… well, their duty. A duty that was greater than either of them, a duty to the world and the universe, a duty that neither of them could run away from.

But it was so, so tempting.

The Doctor threaded his fingers through hers, his eyes still fixed on her. "I'm still evil," he told her. "Just a bit."

Buffy gave a small laugh. "So am I," she said.


	30. Chapter 30

"Okay," said Buffy, entering her dorm room that afternoon. Willow had been doing a wonderful job of making sure the Doctor stayed put, and Buffy had been standing right outside the door, just in case.

But she was ready now.

"Here's the thing," she said, standing in front of the door. "There's been way too many people blaming each other for way too many things that aren't their faults." She looked over at Willow. "You keep blaming yourself for werewolf jerks who sleep around with other werewolf jerks." She looked at the Doctor. "You blame yourself for… okay, basically everything evil that's out there from the Daleks on up."

"I _am_ responsible for the creation of the Daleks," the Doctor argued.

"So," said Buffy, ignoring him, "I've created this!" She turned the paper in her hand around — a large number of papers, all taped together to form a long banner, which had the title "Blame Sheet" scrawled across the top in a red felt tip marker.

Beneath the title, horizontally across the top, were a list of names, written in the same red marker.

"Blame sheet?" asked Willow.

"The Blame Sheet!" said Buffy. "We're going to just scramble it up, and assign blame to whoever and whatever we feel like."

The Doctor quirked an eyebrow at her.

Buffy pointed the capped end of the felt-tipped marker at him. "You. Shut up."

Buffy launched herself at the floor, and uncapped the marker. "Okay," she said. "First. Werewolf boyfriends that can't keep it together." She looked over at the Doctor. "You want to take that one?"

"Buffy," said Willow, "I don't—"

"No!" said Buffy, as she wrote 'stupid werewolf boyfriends' under the 'Doctor' heading. "You're not allowed to blame yourself for Oz anymore, Will. That's not your fault. It's the Doctor's fault."

"You haven't been talking to Queen Victoria, have you?" asked the Doctor.

"I'm going to ignore that," said Buffy. "Next. Time War. I'll take that one."

She started writing Time War under her own name.

"Actually," said the Doctor, "if you want to get technical about it, the entire war could have been averted if I'd—"

"No!" Buffy cut in. "You're not allowed to do that, anymore. Because it's my fault, now. Not yours."

"Despite the fact that this was in a timeline where you never existed," said the Doctor, "involving two groups of people you never met?"

"Yes," said Buffy. She gave them both a look that challenged them to disagree, but they both seemed a little too taken aback to argue with her. Good. "Okay. I'm also going to go ahead and take Daleks and… Will, what was that other thing he mentioned to you, yesterday?"

"Cybermen," said Willow.

"Yeah. Cybermen," said Buffy, writing. "My fault. Completely."

"Buffy, how is any of this supposed to help?" asked Willow. "I mean, your little sheet thingy may say that I'm not to blame for Oz leaving me, but that doesn't mean it's true. I know in my heart—"

"Yeah," said Buffy. "And now you know in your heart that you're responsible for…" She realized there wasn't anything written down under Willow's name, yet. "Oh! I know. You can be responsible for Rose being stuck in another universe."

"Who's Rose?" asked Willow.

Buffy began writing 'Rose' beneath Willow's name. "Someone who's stuck in another universe."

Willow nodded, slowly. "And that's my fault, why?"

"For exactly the same reason that Oz leaving is your fault," said Buffy. "Because it isn't. You guys are both blaming yourselves for stuff that isn't your fault, so now, I'm assigning you blame for stuff that is equally not your fault. If you want, I could take Rose, you could take the Time War."

"No, I'll stick to Rose," said Willow. She hesitated. "Was she good looking?"

Buffy glanced over at the Doctor. "According to him, she's the most beautiful woman this side of the Milky-Way."

Willow thought about this. "Yeah, I'll definitely stick to Rose," she decided.

"Technically," the Doctor said, "Rose is only in the other universe because I—"

"Because Willow did it," Buffy cut in. "And don't be all like, 'she wasn't even there when that whole thing happened!' Because that doesn't matter. From now on, it's Willow's fault. Not yours. _You're_ the one responsible for stupid werewolf boyfriends." She tapped the end of the marker against the paper. "What else?"

"Parker?" asked Willow.

"Oh, Parker's Captain Jack's fault," said Buffy. "I got that one down already."

"Faith," said the Doctor.

Buffy froze.

"I can have Faith," said Willow.

"I'll take it," said the Doctor. "Best friend turning evil and trying to kill everyone. I know a bit about that."

Willow pouted. "Okay," she said. "But only if I can have your home planet being destroyed."

"Done."

Willow pulled the marker out of Buffy's hand, and started writing on the list. Buffy looked up at the Doctor, and he gave her a little wink. She thought she could see the beginnings of his old self coming back, the beginnings of his normal, cheerful self returning.

She had never, ever felt so relieved in her life.

"I'll take those 38,000 deaths, then," said Buffy, reaching for the marker from Willow.

The Doctor caught her hand. "Don't."

"But I—"

"I know," said the Doctor. "But not you. Anyone else. But not you."

"Oh, let's give them to Xander," said Willow, her eyes twinkling, as she wrote it down. "And he can have stupid vampire boyfriends who lose their souls, too."

Buffy looked back at the Doctor, as he released her hand. At the relief in his face, at that familiar spark in his eyes, that familiar boyish grin that was now dancing across his lips again. And Buffy knew that she was going to have to let him leave. That she couldn't keep him here with her forever, couldn't toss his TARDIS key down a bottomless pit and make sure he never left her.

Sometimes she really wished she was just a little more evil.

* * *

Buffy wasn't sure exactly when everything had clicked for her. When it had all come together. When she'd realized that this last incident, this last moment with the Doctor, had been the one puzzle piece she was missing for her own future. But it was shortly after the Blame Sheet that she'd worked it out.

This was why.

Why he came to visit her, over and over again, even though, every time he saw her, he seemed to get a little sadder. Why he kept going out of order, why he kept lying to her about it. Why he'd asked her to come with him, and never return. Why he wanted her to take revenge. She didn't understand where 38,000 came in, or who this 'she' person was that had tried to convince the Doctor that everything in the universe was his fault. But Buffy knew what had convinced him that everything really was.

Someone had died. Someone he was close to. Someone female.

Herself.

Buffy went to the university campus bookstore. She knew what she had to do. Because the Doctor would never come back to Sunnydale, after she was gone. He'd be off, saving the world, and the only other Slayer would be Faith. Buffy needed some way to protect her friends. She needed some way to make sure that they knew how to avoid all the dangers that lay in their future.

She bought a bright red notebook.


End file.
